740 


.'hti/Mtiil.!i,i 
.!i;it.i!i!rint., 
;i(iiiHit'>i;;i 
iii.tnjuti.iu/i 

•itirM'!iiiii'i!-i 

IlildhittltW.n; 
JlllMjiiluilil 
iJliiilriirMlt); 
■  IIOli'iMKlj! 
HHMjIltiMli! 
HlJ!l!Htltl   1) 

:if)vi.i'tMi|ti 
i;i|«ift)!<H>i)/  , 
jutiiir.iiiitiu  ' 

Millltlllllitil     . 


•.ntiimuittt}. 

itlUi  ti(tHitt 

>iO;.t  <>in<i\i 

4^ll;.ll!i|((i<  ' 
t;iiiit;iijt.)f  ! 


t        V        \     '    r        ;        K        ) 


JEWISH  BOOKS. 
BLOCH  PUBLISHING  CO. 

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GIFT   OF 
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ni 


DISCOURSES 

BY 

EMIL    G.    HIRSCH 

Rabbi  Sinai  Congregation,  Chicago 


CONTENTS: 


<    1.  The  Jews  and  Jesus. 

^  2.  JcDus,  llio  Life  and  TimJO. 

3    The  Doctrinco  of  Jesus. 
-^    4*.  Paul,  the  Apostle  of  Heathen  Judaism. 
^  5.   VV-hy  Am  I  a  Jcwr?"(l) 
6.  W-hy  Am  1  a  Jew?  (11) 
-%  7.  The  Inalienable  Duties  of  Man.     (1) 
•^  8,  The  Inalienable  Duties  of  Man.     (11) 
C  9    Myth,  Miracle  and  Midrash, 
"10   TlK  Bible  in  the  Light  of  Modern  Snenre.. 
-^11.  The  Place  of  the  Individual  in  Organized 

Charity.  ^ 

v:i2.  Some  Tendencies  of  the  Modern  Drama. 
'13    Attacks  on  Jews  and  Judaism. 
"14.  Judaism  and  the  llighi?r  Criticism. 
15    The  Dnrtrini^  ^f  F^rni"tinn  ind  .ludaism. 
16.  Judaism  and  Mudcrn  Religion. 
17    The  God  of  Israel'. 
-:i  18   Concordance  of  Judaism  and  Americanism. 
19*  Rusponsibility  for  the  Rui>Maii  MajGacrf?^. 
%  20.  Reform  Judaism  and  Unitarianism. 

Bloch  Publishing  Company 

NEW  YORK 


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THe  Jevvrs  and  Jes\is 


A  DISCOURSE 

BY 

EMIl^  O.  HIR.SCH 


The  Reform  Advocate 

Bloch  &.  Newman,  Publishers 

204  Dearborn  Street.  -  -  -  Chicago,  III 


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THE  JEWS  AND  JESUS. 


On  might  suppose  that  the  Jew  had  been  long  enough 
before  the  world  at  large  to  be  fully  understood  and 
to  be  justly  estiraated.  But  it  seems  that  for  many 
circling  decades  to  come^  the  Jcav  will  have  to  be  resigned 
to  the  fate  not  to  be  kown^  to  figure  as  an  archaeological 
specimen  for  some  kindly  disposed  loersons,  to  serve 
as  a  target  for  poisoned  arrows,  drawn  from  the  quiver 
of  malevolent  minds:  in  one  word,  forever  to  be  mis- 
represented— not  merely  by  such'  as  close  their  eyes  will- 
iugly  to  the  brighter  truth — but  alas !  even  by  others 
whose  heart  beats  with  rare  loyalty  to  whatever  is  good, 
noble  and  uplifting.  The  books  of  all  ages  are  wit- 
nesses to  this  sad  lot,  which  has  befallen  the  Jew.  We 
cannot  complain,  therefore,  that  only  in  modem  days 
this  bitter  tide  has  visited  the  son  of  Israel.  What 
makes  this  experience  in  recent  months  more  galling, 
is  the  contrast  presented  by  the  treatment  accorded  to 
the  Jew,  and  the  general  drift  of  modern  thought;  is 
the  disappointment  keenly  edged  by  the  reflection  that 
our  hopes  and  expectations  soar  so  high,  while  actual 
conduct  still  stilts  in  low  planes.  Whatever  else  may  be 
said  about  the  Jew  and  his  religion,  this  one  thing 
seems  to  be  taken  for  granted,  needing  no  further  in- 
spection or  proof,  that  the  Jew  by  his  very  religion, 
is  led  to  be  hostile  to  Christianity;  that  the  Jewish 
lieart  bulges  with  hatred  for  all  that  is  not  labeled  Jew- 
ish, and  that  especially  he  whose  name  for  millions  of 

M18292 


humaii  beings  tokens  the  very  highest,  is  sj^urned  and 
&(^cI*Acd  Xv'ith  bittei*  contempt  by  the  devoted  descend- 
'  ants  of  Abraham,  now  as  ever  iDefore.  Nothing^  how- 
ever, can  be  further  from  tlic  truth  than  this.  Cer- 
tainly the  literature  of  Judaism  ought  to  be  taken  into 
account  before  this  sweeping  verdict  of  condemnation 
is  apodictically  pronounced;  and  if  there  be  those  to 
whom  tlie  literature  of  Judaism  is  a  sealed  book,  they 
should  remember  the  canon  of  honesty  that  no  one  may 
speak  of  things  of  wliich,  by  the  nature  of  their  proc- 
lamation, he  must  be  ignorant.  It  is  a  very  comfort- 
able but  very  cheap  method  with  unperturbed  self- 
assurance  to  repeat  old  errors,  to  voice  old  prejudices; 
but  will  an  honest  man  indulge  in  these  tactics?  He 
will  spurn  to  huckster  in  never  so  venerable  prejudices 
unless  convinced  that  their  basis  is  the  granite  of  fact, 
as  revealed  by  an  honest  endeavor  to  probe  things  to 
the  hard  pan  at  the  l)ottom.  Tliose  who  have  studied, 
or  are  competent  to  do  so,  the  old  Jewish  literature, 
cannot  with  good  conscience  repeat  the  charge,  that 
the  Jew,  by  his  very  religion  is  prompted  to  cherish 
the  spirit  of  hostility  to  all  other  religions.  They  can- 
not again  lend  word  to  the  unjust  though  old  indict- 
ment, tliat  the  Jew,  rejecting  the  prophet  of  ISTazareth, 
heaps  upon  this  name,  which  is  symbol  of  truth  and 
emblem  of  love  for  millions,  contempt  and  scorn. 

Tow^ard  Christianity  Judaism  as  a  religion,  even 
orthodox  Judaism,  has  always  preserved  an  attitude  of 
kindliest  fairness.  Wliatever  laws  may  be  found  in  the 
old  rabbinnical  codes  bearing  upon  idolatry,  atheism, 
blasphemy,  and  the  whole  ilk  and  brood  of  breaches  of 
religious  rectitude  of  this  black  order.  Christianity  was 
always   officially  and   most  emphatically   declared  not 

2 


to  be  one  of  the  company  of  religions  or  rather 
irreligious  systems  to  which  the  laws  and  regu- 
lations in  question^  enacted  to  stem  the  tide  of 
idolatiy  and  blasjjhemy,  could  apply.  E.  Joseph 
Caro  is  certainly  a  trustworthy  exponent  of 
Jewish  orthodoxy  of  the  most  uncompromising  stamp. 
In  his  "Beth-Joseph/^  a  ritual  code  of  high  authority 
('Hoshon  Mishpat^  266)^  he  says:  ''The  non-Jews  D'T^ 
of  our  days  do  not  belong  to  the  category  denoted  in 
the  Talmud  as  'Akkum^  and  none  of  the  laws  enacted 
against  these  is  applicable  to  them.'^  And  his  view 
and  express  statement  has  i)assed  into  the  preface  of 
well  nigh  all  editions  of  the  Shul'han-Arukh.  Chris- 
tianity is  by  Jewish  orthodoxy,  even,  recognized  to  l)e 
a  monotheistic  religion.  It  is  accorded  willingly  the 
function  of  having  been  among  God's  appointed  agents 
to  carry  the  light  of  monotheism  out  into  the  darkened 
world.  Men  who  are  at  home  in  medieval  Jewish  lit- 
erature need  no  longer  assurance  to  quiet  whatever  ap- 
prehensions they  might  offhandedly  have  entertained  on 
this  score.  Time  will  not  allow  us  to  give  ear  to  more 
than  a  few  voices  composing  the  chorus,  sounding  in  all 
centuries  and  comitries  the  same  glad  song  of  tolerant 
recognition.  Eabbi  Jacob  Emden,  of  Altona  (1698- 
1776),  puts  the  conception  of  the  rabbis  most  pithily 
when  he  says :  "Christianity  was  founded  for  the  hea- 
the^,  not  as  a  new  religion,  but  as  the  old,  which  com^ 
manded  the  keeping  of  the  seven  N"oa''hidic  (funda- 
mental moral)  laws,  that  had  fallen  into  oblivion  among 
the  nations,  and  tiiercfore  were  proclaimed  anew  by 
the  Christian  apostles.''  "The  Christians/'  says  an- 
other, E.  Isaac  ben  Shcshct  (1400-1440),  "are  to  be  con- 
sidered as  ^trrn  ^"i:i    proselytes."        These  sentiments 

3 


and  similar  expressions  abound  in  tlic  writings  of  the 
old  Jewish  teachers.  Every  tyro  in  that  field  of  learn- 
ing is  acqiiaiiitixl  with  this  glorious  abundance  of  tes- 
timony to  similar  purport.* 

The  Jews  had  no  reason  to  love  or  to  hate  the  foundei* 
of  Christianity.  They  might  have  had  provocation  lo 
hate,  those  who  prot-nded  to  be  his  followers;  for  the 
histoiy  of  the  Jews  beginning  with  the  Christian  era 
clear  cIotntq  to  this  latest  day,  is  but  a  succession  of  per- 
secutions, such  as  no  other  set  of  human  beings  has  been 
called  upon  to  endure.  I^To  other  religion  was  tried  so 
sorely  by  another  faith,  her  own  daughter,  officially  at 
least  professed  by  men  in  power.  Talk  of  Asiatic  bru- 
tality; of  African  barbarism!  Why,  what  the  savage 
tribes  commit  in  their  rude  ignorance  is  kindness  com- 
l)ared  to  what  was  practiced  upon  the  Jews !  Need  T 
go  into  details?  >Scarce  a  year  passed  from  the  third 
Christian  century  to  the  French  Eevolution,  but  some- 
where in  Europe,  in  the  very  name  of  Christianit}^, 
Jews  were  sliuglitered  by  the  thousands.  Innocence 
is  no  protection;  weakness  is  no  armor;  wisdom  affords 
no  escape ;  old  age  does  not  stay  the  hand  that  would 
strike!  With  fire  and  dungeon;  with  rack  and  torture, 
they  come, — the  pretended  apostles  of  a  religion  of 
love!  Al^s,  the  provocation  to  hate  was  ample;  but 
nevertheless  Christianity  was  not  hated!  Hatred  must 
be  made  of  sterner  stuff  than  the  estimate  of  Christian- 
ity's ]irovidential  mission  which  again  and  again  fin(is 
place  in  the  l)ooks  of  rabbinical  writers !  is  it  hatred 
that  prompted  one,  f.  i.,  to  say :  ^'The  founder  of  Chris- 


*Hambtirger's  Encyclopedia,  Suppl.  II,  under  the  cap- 
tion, "Christen,"  has  collected  most  of  the  passages  in 
this  roll  of  honor. 

4 


tianity  has  conferred  a  twofold  benefaction  upon  tlie 
world;  on  the  one  hand,  he  emphasized  the  eternal 
obligation  of  the  law  of  Moses,  on  the  other  he  led  the 
heathen  from  idolatry  to  the  knowledge  of  the  (seven) 
laws  of  morality''?  Tlie  Jews  in  the  middle  as^es 
would  gladly  have  refrained  from  discussing  Christian- 
ity, had  they  been  permitted  so  to  do.  The  silence 
al30ut  Jgsus  in  the  Talmud  is  significant-  Few  are  the 
per  onal  references  to  him,  though  in  an  indirect  man- 
ner the  doctors  of  the  Talmud  show  that  they  are,  to 
a  certain  extent,  accjuainted  with  his  labors,  as  related 
in  tlie  tradition-,  probably  not  yet  rigidly  crystalized, 
of  his  followers.  Under  the  coyer  of  Balaam's  name, 
they  assign  to  him  a  prophetic  mission.  Controversies, 
indeed,  are  recorded  with  the  adherents  of  the  rising 
new  sect.  But  these  run  not  along  the  line  of  Jesus's 
personality  but  of  dogmatic  differences  or  of  the  cor- 
rect interpretation  of  Biblical  passages.  A  broad  tol- 
erance marks  even  Talmudical  polemics.  In  post-Tal- 
mudic  centuries,  the  Jews  enter  the  lists  only  as  forced 
combatants.  Bishops  and  prelates,  kings  and  counts 
cited  the  Jewish  scholars  to  dangerous  disputations.  In 
defense,  not  in  defiance,  do  the  rabbis  take  part  in  the 
combat.  They  are  not  the  assailants,  but  alwa3's  the 
assailed !  That  they  should  take  advantage  of  all  re- 
sources of  logic  or  learning,  none  will  reckon  to  their 
blame.  Tli?  controversies  turn  largely  on  so-called 
Messianic  prophecies.  ^NTo  wonder,  then,  that  also  tha 
commentators  on  the  passages  where  Jewish  interpre- 
tants  took  their  own  conrsel  and  differed  radically  from 
the  constructions  of  the  Cliristian,  should  have  em- 
braced tlie  opportunity  to  speak  somewhat  at  length 
on  the  points  in  issue.     Xor  is  it  surprising  that  Jew- 

5 


ish  thinkers  in  treating  of  doctrinal  chapters  have.  In 
defining  tlic  j^osition  of  Judaisjn,  occasionally  made 
excursions  into  the  domain  of  Christian  theology.  But, 
for  the  most  part,  this  is  done  in  a  spirit  of  reserve 
and  becoming  dignity.  As  far  as  I  know,  the  name  of 
the  founder  of  Cliristianity  is  but  rarely  mentioned 
by  the  Jewish  debaters  and  writers.  And  where  it  is, 
it  is  without  any  manifestation  of  what  might  be  mis- 
construed into  contempt  or  scorn,  though,  of  course, 
the  absence  of  any  peculiar  reverence  is  also  noticeable. 
Jesus  is  generally  cited  as  •n^^'^^n  the  "Nazarene." 
A  certain  familiarity  with  the  Xew  Testament  is  also 
displayed  on  the  part  of  some,  if  not  all,  Jewish  con- 
trovertants.  Whatever  there  may  have  been  of  bitter- 
ness in  these  coinpulsory  polemics  was  caused  b}^  the 
Jewish  apostates.  These  worthies,  then  as  now,  deemed 
it  rnre  sport  to  '*^cast  stones  into  the  very  well  from 
which  they  liad  driink.^'  Often  blatant  ignoramuses;, 
always  dishonest  self-seekers,  they  had  no  compunction 
to  twist  into  nets  and  snares  for  Judaism  and  the  Jews 
ihe  fcarbled  or  disflirured  knowledge  they  possessed  of 
the  faith  of  their  fathers.  These  foul  knaves,  the  rabbis 
werj  called  to  meet.  Tliey  would  have  been  super- 
human had  they  altogether  suppressed  the  rising  indig- 
nation at  this  insult  added  to  injury.  There  is,  how- 
ever, one  black  exception  to  this  unbroken  rule  of  dig- 
i^ified  controversy,  so  far  as  the  Jews  had  a  share  in  it. 
Some  time  before  the  J)th  century,  further  than  this  the 
date  cannot  be  determined,  appeared  a  pasquille  of  the 
vilest  sort,  '^Tol'doth  Jeshu"  (Life  of  Jesus),  purport- 
ing to  give  the  story  of  the  great  T^azarene.  Its  origi- 
nal language  was  probably  the  aramaian,  and  Syria  may 
have  been  the  home  of  the  author.     This  Apocryphon 

6 


is  a  cesspool  of  all  nastiness,  of  fabrications  out  of  the 
whole  clot]];  the  respoEsibility  for  it  Judaism  declines 
to  shoulder,  as  its  sentiments  are  not  now,  and  never 
were,,  shared  by  the  Jews. 

It  stands  to  reason  that  with  the  birth  of  modern 
science  and  new  investigations  in  the  domain  of  relig- 
ious thought,  history  and  literature,  the  attention  of 
Jewish  scholars  was  no  less  attracted  to  nascent  Chris- 
tianity than  was  that  of  non- Jewish  students. 

Before  there  was  a  call  for  Jewish  historians  to  deal 
with  the  life  and  the  character  of  the  carpenter's  son  of 
Bethlehem,  historical  studies  had  first  to  make  their 
influences  felt  in  and  out  of  Judaism.  It  is  merely  in 
modern  time  that  the  comparative  science  of  religion 
has  been  ushered  into  blessed  utility.  Only  within  the 
last  sixty  years  have  scholars  found  themselves  moved 
to  trace  back  the  course  of  religious  development,  and 
to  peep  if  possible  into  the  laboratory  of  history,  whence 
those  peculiar  forces  are  sent  forth  on  their  errand, 
which  we  spell  by  the  name  of  this  or  that  religious 
movement.  Only  A^dthin  the  last  sixty  or  seventy  year'*, 
or  perhaps  we  may  go  as  far  back  as  Lessing,  was  there 
any  occasion  to  search  into  the  part  or  function  pla3^ed 
by  the  great  personalities  ^vhose  names  are  thundering 
down  the  vestilniles  of  time,  in  that  great  ocean  styled 
by  us,  crrowing,  moving,  striving  humanity.  Before  the 
method  of  these  studies  and  their  relation  to  the  growth 
of  ideas,  potent  in  human  evolution,  had  been  discov- 
ered, there  was  no  occasion  for  the  JeAvish  thinker  to 
devote  time  and  attention  to  the  life  and  the  character 
of  the  founder  of  a  religion  not  his  own.  Certainly  the 
thinkers  of  the  middle  ages  could  not  be  attracted  to 
go  into  this  field  by  the  promise  of  finding  there  a  sweet 
.     '  7 


grain  which  did  not  wave  in  their  home  acres.  The 
contrast  was  pressed  upon  them  most  painfully,  that  if 
what  Christianity  presented  to  the  Jew  was  love,  the 
law  of  the  Jews  was  much  better  than  the  thus  pre- 
tended higher  revelation.  Tlie  Jew  must  have  pos- 
sessed at  home  whatever  he  needed  to  make  life  sweet. 
Say  what  you  will  of  the  Judaism  of  the  middle  ages, 
call  it  narrow,  deride  it  as  superstitious,  denounce  it 
as  slavery  to  form,  unless  lost  to  all  sense  of  justice, 
or  without  the  power  to  dive  beneath  the  surface  of 
the  seeming,  to  tlie  roots  of  the  real,  you  cannot  but 
witness  to  the  incontrovertible  fact  that  for  sweetness 
and  spirituality  of  life,  the  Jew  of  the  Ghetto,  the  Jew 
of  the  middle  ages,  the  Jew  under  the  yoke  of  the  Tal- 
mud, challenges  the  whole  world.  Xo  life  is  sweeter  and 
at  the  same  time  stronger  than  theirs.  In  their  home 
glowed  the  chaste  flame  of  love;  in  their  heart  leaped 
upward  the  blaze  of  aspiration.  Talk  of  martyrdom ! 
It  has  become  fashionable  for  the  liberal  j^latform  lec- 
turers to  make  much  of  the  story  of  the  great  heroes 
who  died  for  the  intellectual  freedom  of  the  world, 
beginning  with  Socrates  and  Jesus ;  through  the  darker 
ages  to  the  dawn  of  the  Reformation,  and  enumerating 
the  many  stars  whose  light  went  out  in  the  blaze  oi' 
the  funeral  pyre,  or  whose  life  blood  oozed  away  under 
the  executioner's  axo,  they  finally  w^ind  up  with  a  special 
eclat  mth  Spinoza,  that  victim  of  the  intense  bigotrv, 
as  our  liberal  platform  lecturers  would  have  it,  which 
nowhere  else  but  in  the  narrow  synagogue  could  have 
asserted  itself.  Certainly,  the  memory  of  these  is  hal- 
lowed forever!  But  for  martyrdom  and  devotion  to 
principle  the  lot  of  the  Jew  and  his  fortiturle  are  to 
the  fate  and  steadfastness  of  Socrates  and  Spinoza,  a 

8 


crown  diamonc]  compared  to  the  paste  imitation  on  the 
ring  of  a  low,  vulgar  gambler,  ^o  other  record  of 
heroism  for  principle's  sake  is  so  bright  and  inspiring 
as  are  the  tear-stained  scrolls,  the  "Memoir  Books/" 
chronicling  the  slangliter  of  the  Jews  in  the  middle 
ages.  Heroism  of  this  kind  is  spiritual  in  the  highest 
degree;  and  therefore  for  the  spirit's  chastening  or 
sweetening  influence  the  Jew  found  no  necessity  to  go 
beyond  his  own  religious  temple,  and  to  look  for  ex- 
ample beyond  his  own  religious  community.  A  religion 
that  could  make  life  worth  living,  with  its  hopes  de- 
ferred and  its  duties  redoubled,  under  such  distressing 
circumstances,  was  religion  strong  and  sweet  enough. 
Its  adherents  had  no  need  to  hunger  for  bread  other 
than  their  own  teaching.  What  they  needed  was  pro- 
vided in  the  synagogue  and  within  the  walls  of  their 
own  contracted  home.  Yea,  their  home  was  filled  with 
a  peace  which  the  world  could  not  give,  and  which  tha 
world  could  not  take  away. 

Only  in  modern  times,  when  scholars  began  to  in- 
vestigate the  processes  which  resulted  in  these  grand 
movements,  the  positive  religions  of  modern  day,  did 
also  Jewish  scholars  waken  to  the  profitableness  of  de- 
voting thought  and  time  to  the  life,  the  labors  and  the 
character  of  the  prophet  of  Xazareth.  Xot  merely  we, 
the  liberals,  have  willingly  accepted  the  invitation  to 
study  that  chapter  of  our  histor}',  which  more  than  any 
other  has  affected  civilization,  but  the  more  conserva- 
tive, yea,  even  the  orthodox,  have  with  equal  zeal,  and 
with  total  absence  of  prejudice,  investigated  these  por- 
tentous days,  when,  according  to  common  tradition. 
Jesus  taught  in  the  synagogues  of  Galilee,  and  died  at 
Golgotha,"  a  victim  of  Eoman  politics  and  of  priestly 
1  9 


intrigue.  All  of  us  are  agreed,  waving  even  the  ques- 
tion of  the  historical  authenticity  of  the  gospels,  that 
Jesus  was  a  noble  character;  that  in  him  quivered  the 
fullest  measure  of  spirituality;  that  he  helieved  in  his 
own  destiny  and  duty;  that  he  taught  a  high  life.  But 
all  of  us  are  also  agreed  in  this:  that  what  he  taught 
was  not  a  revelation  new  to  the  synagogues;  for  neither 
in  his  morality  nor  in  his  religious  hope  did  he  advance 
one  step  beyond  the  teachings  of  contemporaneous  Ju- 
daism. 

He  cannot  lay  claim  to  originality;  what  he  teaches 
is  the  echo  of  the  doctrines  he  himself  had  heard  from 
the  lips  of  his  own  Jewish  masters;  what  lived  ani 
moved  and  stiiTcd  in  him,  that  lived  as  fully  in  the 
hearts  of  many  others  in  those  days.  He  was  distin- 
guished for  his  love  for  the  common  people;  in  him 
beat  a  heart  attuned  to  the  higher  possibilities  of  the 
human  kind.  For  him.  religion  was  not  altogether  form 
and  ceremony;  it  was  devotion  and  duty.  But  for  all 
tliis,  he  did  not  stand  on  a  higher  altitude  than  did  the 
teachers  of  his  own  days,  teachers  in  the  synagogue ; 
teachers  that  never  dreamed,  as  indeed  he  never  did 
dream,  to  hold  a  commission  from  on  high  to  bring  to 
the  world  a  new  light.  "We  grant,  for  argument's  sake, 
that  he  lived  and  labored  during  the  critical  period  to 
which  the  gospels  assign  him, — though  this  has  been 
doubted ; — we  take,  without  furtlier  inquiry,  the  state- 
ments of  the  gospels  as  they  are.  With  these  data  a 
conclusion  is  forced  upon  one  in  the  least  familiar  with 
the  Jewish  thought  of  that  time,  that  in  what  and  how 
he  taught  and  prayed,  in  his  hopes  and  his  illusion^, 
— in  no  particular  did  he  set  himself  in  opposition  to 
the  synagogues  of  his  day.    Nor  did  he  rise  to  a  higher 

10 


plane  of  religious  u23look  than  had  risen  many  of  his 
predecessors;  many  of  those  among  whom  he  lived.  The 
Lord's  Prayer  is  indeed  a  wreath  of  the  most  beautiful 
flowers  of  the  Jewish  liturgy.  It  has- become  the  most 
IDOwerful  inspiration  of  all  times.  But  in  that  casket, 
containing  so  many  jewels,  there  is  not  a  single  gem 
but  had  graced  in  one  form  or  other  the  crown  worn 
by  the  synagogue.  Some,  even  professional  liberal  lec- 
turers, in  season  and  out  of  season^  tell  their  admiring 
friends — and  strange  to  say,  among  these  the  Jews  pre- 
dominate— that  such  a  thought  as  "Our  Father -which 
art  in  Heaven,"  could  never  have  crossed  the  lips  of  a 
Jew,  bound  in  the  fetters  of  the  Judaism  of  this  ol- 
any  other  age, — yea,  the  Judaism  of  our  day  not 
excepted.  It  is  true  tlie  Christian  theological  semi- 
naries never  weary  of  teaching  this  fallacy.  Probably 
these  liberal  lecturers,  notwithstanding  their  profuse 
profession  to  have  overcome  the  limitations  of  their 
early  Presbyterian  education,  have  remained  derelict 
to  the  ethical  duty  to  revise  their  stock  of  information 
carried  avray  from  school.  And  thus,  with  an  assurance 
that  among  Jews  would  be  characterized  by  the  word 
n^'jfir  they  repeat  in  season  and  out  of  season,  ih} 
slander  that  Judaism  can  never  unseal  the  lips  of  its 
rlevotees  to  stammer  forth  the  sublime,  the  inspiring: 
invocation.  "Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven."  It  is 
a  pity,  indeed,  that  historical  truth  compels  us  to  spoil 
these  ethical  lecturers'  stock  in  trade.  There  is  not  an 
old  Siddur,  an  old  prayer-book  but  has  this  very  appeal 
to  God,  D''t2trri:'  ir^K  ''Our  Father  which  art  in 
Heaven";  and  the  Jewish  prayers  which  begin  in  this 
wise  are  not  posterior  to  the  period  when  the  Lord's 
Prayer  became  Iniown ;  if    anything,    they  precede  in 

11 


time  the  composition  and  the  promulgation  of  the  New 
Testament  formula. 

Judaism  then  has  not  learned  the  thought,  "Our 
Father  which  art  in  Heaven,"  from  the  mouth  of  Jesus, 
but  Jesus  learned  it  from  the  lips  of  Judaism.  "Ah !" 
says  now  the  ethical  lecturer,  and  those  that  make  ft 
parade  of  their  liberalism,  either  ignorant  of  the  facts 
in  point  or  willingly  blind  to  them,  "Our  Father  which 
art  in  Heaven,  in  the  petition  of  the  Jew,  signifies  the 
father  of  the  Jews ;  no  one  else  is  God's  son  except  the 
Jew."  Again,  in  urging  this  error  in  the  defense  of 
his  first,  the  former  Presbyterian  clergyman  reveals 
that  though  he  may  have  been  a  student  at  the  theo- 
logical seminary,  he  has  never  grasped  his  Old  Testa- 
ment— a  collection  of  writings  which  certainly  a  clergy- 
man, and  a  liberal  lecturer  without  question  should  hav-j 
read.  Did  not  one  of  the  later  pro])hets  living  at  least 
four  hundred  or  five  hundred  years  before  Chrstianity 
call  out:  "Have  we  not  all  one  Father?  Has  not  one 
God  made  us  all?"  Are  there  not  in  this  old  Bible, 
psalms  of  the  broadest  fellowship,  or  books  which 
breathe  the  fire  of  indignant  protest  against  the  thought 
that  God  was  merely  the  God  of  the  Israelites;  that 
God  had  no  care  for  the  strangers,  or  love  for  members 
of  other  nationalities?  No ;  Avhatever  may  be  said  about 
Jewish  exclusivity  and  national  pride,  the  charge  must 
be  dismissed  for  want  of  evidence,  while  Judaism  caM 
easily  prove  her  case.  Her  genius  is  toward  universal 
fellowship.  Jewish  universalism  is  quick  at  all  times; 
is  quick  even  in  Talmudic  Judaism;  quick  in  the  Juda- 
ism of  today.  Long  before  the  great  teacher  of  Naza- 
reth went  out  to  clothe  in  sound  the  thought  of  the 
universal  fathei-hood,    had    Judaism    conceived  of  h; 

12 


taught  it  at  liome;  had  proclaimed  it  to  the  whole 
world.  "Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven/'  whatevor 
construction  may  be  put  upon  the  phrase,  is  bone  of 
our  bone,  flesh  of  our  flesh.  The  appeal  was  not  new 
for  us,  no  new  revelation  for  the  synagogue,  however 
new  it  may  have  been  for  the  non-Jewish  world. 

It  has  been  urged  that  Jesus  proclaimed  himself  '^th,? 
son  of  man'^  in  distinction  to  those  who  continued  to 
call  themselves  sons  of  Abraham,  sons  of  Judah,  sons 
of  Hellas,  sons  of  Eome.  The  critical  student,  both  of 
the  biography  of  Jesus  and  of  the  old  Je^Wsh  records, 
must  shake  his  head  in  pitv^  for  the  ignorance,  or  !ri 
anger  for  the  presumption  of  those  that  would  trestle 
on  such  weak  supports  their  airy  constructions.  If  it 
must  be  accepted,  for  the  moment  let  us  accept  it^ — 
that  th.e  phrase  "son  of  man,"  has  this  point :  Jesus 
is  cosmopolitan;  he  has  risen  above  the  narrow  limita- 
tions of  nationality  and  locality,  race  and  blood;  again, 
our-  old  Bible,  our  old  Testament,  by  six  hundred  A'ear- 
is  his  prec'ecessor,  in  bringing  this  thought  to  a  focus. 
Does  not  Ezekiel,  the  prophet  of  the  approaching  res- 
toration, the  priest  drafting  the  plan  of  the  temple 
about  to  be  rebuilt,  and  of  the  priesthood  to  be  reorgan- 
ized, call  himself  ^:}j'<  ]!  son  of  man?  If  this  title 
tokens  universality,  Ezekiel  assuming  it  is  entitled  to 
the  priority  by  many  generations.  At  all  events  this 
universal  thought  is  not  an  exotic  flower  in  Judaism. 
On  the  other  hand,  however,  it  cannot  be  urged  thfit 
Jesus  in  using  the  title  "son  of  man,"  had  at  all  m 
mind  this  universalism.  For  the  very  Jesus  who  is 
now  set  up  as  a  type  of  the  man  of  universal  sympathies, 
cautions  his  own  disciples  not  to  preach  the  word  to 
non-Israelites.    He  does  not  travel  in  Samaria,  becau^^c^ 

13 


Samaria  is  defiled.  He  warns  against  throwing  the 
bread  to  the  strangers.  He  would  have  it  di- 
vided among  the  chihlren  of  his  own  jjeople.  lie 
talks  about  casting  ^'pearls  before  swine" — meaning 
thereby  the  non-Jews.  Whatever  construction  we  may 
place  upon  the  title  '*^son  of  man"  we  are  confronted  by 
the  dilemma  either  to  grant  that  before  Jesus's  time 
the  title  and  tliercfore  its  implication  was  assumed  by 
one  of  our  own  prophets  or  that  even  Jesus  was  preju- 
diced— shared  all  the  old  national  prejudices  of  his 
kinsmen.  The  gospels,  purporting  to  report  liis  sayings, 
make  him  out  to  be  a  Jew,  national  to  the  core,  national 
in  his  sympathies;  proclaiming  his  doctrines  to  th(; 
Jews  and  the  Jews  alone ;  delighting  in  being  the  shep- 
herd of  Israel,  and  not  of  the  lost  sheep  of  other  flocks. 
But  our  philological  conscience  cannot  but  register  its 
}'rotest  against  urging  the  title  ^^son  of  man"  to  mean, 
son  of  all  humanity.  The  phrase  is  Aramaic.  In  the 
Hebrew  of  Ezekiel  which  begins  to  take  an  Aramaic 
coloring,  it  occurs  as  well.  Both  in  Htebrew  w  JX  ]Z  and 
in  Aramaic  1^*3*^  it  cannot  be  construed  to  mean  aught 
I'ut  simply  human  being.  Jesus  speaks  of  himself  a^ 
the  ''son  of  man,"  if  any  protest  was  in  his  thought,  it 
would  have  been  none  other  than  against  the  imputation 
of  divinity  to  him.  He  is  the  simple.^man."  In  reality 
the  gospels  follow  consciously  in  this,  as  in  many  morp 
points,  the  precedent  of  the  Hebrew  scriptures.  Be- 
cause Ezekiel  was  so  denoted,  the  writers  of  the  Xew 
Testament  use  the  phrase  to  describe  Jesus.  The  com- 
pounds with  "13  in  Aramaic  are  in  sense  mere  adjectives. 
^'Son  of  Man"  is  in  English  radically  at  variance  witii 
the  sense  of  the  Hebrew  w':^  i3  or  the  Aramaic  U:'^2 
'J'he  Hebrew  phrase,  with  the  word  son,  and  the  similar 

14 


Aramaic  construction^  are  idiomatic  expressions.  In 
English  and  in  other  modern  tongues^  and  in  Latin  and 
Greek  we  shoukl  employ  adjectives.  "Son  of  man'^  in 
Hebre^y  conveys  to  one  familiar  with  the  genius  of  the 
language  the  notion  of  our  English  '^'human.^'  Thus  if 
that  phrase  has  any  bearing  other  than  literal,  its  force 
lies  in  the  himianity,  in  contradistinction  to  the  di- 
vinity, of  Jesus.  I 

But  the  morality  of  Jesus  is  perhaps  broader  than 
that  of  the  synagogue !  Certainly  no  one  before  Jesus 
ims  said — sa3's  our  liberal  lecturer  of  the  Ethical 
Culture  Society,  the  liberal  preacher  of  the  Unitarians, 
and  others, — no  one  in  the  synagogue  ever  could  have 
said,  'Tove  thy  neiglibor  like  thyself;'^  "Do  unto  others 
as  you  would  have  them  do  unto  you.'^  Did  none  be- 
fore Jesus  preach  this  altruism?  Can  we  overlook  Con- 
fucius? But  of  Confucius  the  Jews  knew  nothing  at 
that  time.  AYere  the  Jews  then  ignorant  of  the  prin- 
ciple? The  book  of  Tobit  was  composed  about  three 
hundred  years  before  the  Christian  era;  it  contains  the 
"golden  rule.^'  Is  it  then  taken  from  the  Xew  Testa- 
ment? The  book  in  which  it  is  found  is  older  than  the 
Xew  Testament,  the  conclusion  which  is  the  original  is 
TiOt  difficult  to  draw.  Moreover  our  own  Hillel,  sum- 
med up  his  religion  in  this  epitome  of  ethics :  "Love 
thy  neighbor  like  thyself.''  "What  is  hateful  to  thee  do 
not  do  to  thy  fellow.''  "This  is  Judaism,  all  the  rest  is 
commentary,"  said  he  to  the  heathen,  come  to  be  con- 
verted, m^rZw  V*:  '^Sd  HT  this  was  the  fundamental 
proprosition  of  the  law.  ''Go  and  study  the  commen- 
tary!" Whose  now  is  the  prioritv^  Hillel's  or  Jcsus's? 
Consult  the  tables  of  chronology !  Judaism  as  con- 
ceived of  by  Hilkl  had  on  this  point  nothing  to  learn 

15 


from  Jesus.  But  "Judaism  never  loved  the  enemy; 
never  was  it  said  bv  tliem  of  old^  'Love  your  enemy/'' 
Perliaps  not  in  so  many  words!  But  was  this  precept 
ever  practiced  by  the  Christians?  Exclusion  is  certain- 
ly a  strange  demonstration  of  one's  love.  Exclusion  of 
tlie  descendants  of  fathers  falsely  charged  w^ith  a  crime 
which  they  never  had  committed,  from  political  life  and 
civil  rights,  ostraci^^m  from  society,  refusal  of  hospitality 
at  public  inns, — these  are  indeed  symptoms  of  a  love? 
so  strange  as  to  pass  all  understanding.  And  then  they 
talk  of  love  to  their  enemies,  when  they  cannot  even  love 
those  wlio  are  not  their  enemies!  It  seems,  tlicn,  tli;it 
the  Christians  no  less  than  others  have  not  been  very 
attentive  to  the  words  of  Jesus.  Let  the  Christians  first 
learn  and  practise  the  doctrines  of  the  Mount,  before  in 
blindne.-s  superinduced  by  a  beam  in  their  own  eye,  they 
would  reproach  others  for  the  mote  in  theirs!  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  the  Jews  have  practiced  this 
'%ve'^  for  the  enemy,  and  have  abhorred  'iiatred.''  Xot 
in  a  spirit  of  boastfulness  do  I  say  this.  You  know- 
that  I  protest  against  this  spirit  of  boastfulness,  in  sea- 
son and  out  of  season,  perhaps  more  strongly  than  is 
to  your  liking.  Justice,  however,  warrants  tlie  claim, 
the  Jews  did  love  those  that  hated  them  and  were  taught 
to  return  good  for  evil.  In  the  Jewish  law,  it  is  said 
that  if  enemy  and  friend  need  tlie  helping  hand,  the; 
enemy  shall  be  the  first,  not  the  friend,  to  receive  aid. 
Such  is  Jewish,  Talmudic  ethics.  Is  it  then  a  de- 
parture from  the  truth,  to  hold  that  Judaism  recognizv:^^ 
tlie  precci^t,  ''Thou  shalt  love  thine  enemy?"  Was  it 
not  a  principle  of  the  synagogues?  The  Jews  certainly 
have  ])Tact.iced  it.  AVhere  was  ever  Jew  whose  philan- 
thropy was  not  broader  than  race  oiw  creed  lines?     Our 

16 


hospitals  and  training  schools  are  open  to  all  alike.  Is 
the  Christian  civilization  under  the  Czar's  benevolent 
sceptre  an  illustration  of  Christian  love?  Was  it  love 
tliat  made  homeless  millions  of,  human  beings  who  hap- 
pened to  be  of  one  race  with  the  Xazarene?  Is  it  love 
that  confines  as  many  more  to  a  territory  where  there  is 
no  room  for  them  to  live  but  must  rot  and  die  of  slow 
starv^ation?  And  our  [Jnited  States  Government  is 
willing  to  do  detective  work  for  this  organized  barbar- 
ism, that  not  content  to  have  thousands  in  the  Siberian 
mines,  upon  whom  to  vent  a  superabundance  of  love,  is 
yearning  to  stretch  forth  its  arms  across  the  ocean  in 
search  for  other  victims  of  its  attachment.  When  the 
Czar's  name  is  mentioned  at  the  banquets  we  rise  to  do 
him  honor,  this  despot  of  Asiatic  power.  But  let  a 
Jewish  American  venture  to  plan  a  visit  to  this  our 
"friendV^  dominion.  At  the  frontier  he  is  told  he  must 
stay  out.  And  indeed,  who  would  not  be  glad  to  stay 
out  of  that  hell,  that  house  of  bondage !  Yet  oui 
United  States  Senator  would  return  thither  all  whose 
only  offence  is  to  have  forged  a  paper  which  alone  gave 
them  the  privilege  to  get  out  under  the  wings  of  the 
Ixussian  majesty's  paternal  care ! 

We  are  not  enemies  of  Russia ;  but  in  this  way  we  are 
treated.  Contrast  Russian  love  with  our  Jewish  hatred. 
Had  we,  to  leani  the  lesson  of  love,  to  scan  the  Xew 
Testament!  It  seems  those  that  profess  to  be  sworn 
interpreters  of  the  New  Testament  have  not  learned  it. 
But  the  Jews  with  nothing  but  the  Old  Testament  and 
the  Talmud  seem  practically  to  have  applied  love  as  the 
law  that  binds  us,  nay,  the  vaster  family  of  humanity. 

The  other  principles  too,  in  which  the  ethics  of  Jesus 
are  said  to  b^-  different  from  ours  have  never  yet  been 

17 


practically  carried  out  anywhere  on  earth.  Why  have 
the  machinery  of  courts  when  according  to  the  etliics  ot! 
New  Testament  Christianity  tlie  murderer  should  not  be 
punished;  the  thief  should  be  encouraged;  the  man  that 
strikes  one  blow  should  be  asked  to  strike  a  second? 
We  have  the  teacher's  own  word  to  this  effect.  Xo 
quibble  can  lift  us  over  this  hard  and  fast 
fact.  Tlie  ethics  of  Jesus  teach  non-resistance.  Early 
Christianity  reflects  a  communistic  form  of  society. 
^'Sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  follow  me  V'  is  the  answer 
given  by  Jesus  to  the  rich  young  man  anxious  to  join 
liis  band  of  disciples.  In  his  kingdom,  as  he  foresaw  it, 
there  w^as  no  need  of  money;  there  was  need  for  love. 
The  early  Christians  lived  in  communistic  organizations 
and  associations.  This  is  a  matter  of  historical  record. 
Tlie  boast  of  many,  indeed,  is  that  they  live  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  their  boast  is  not 
verified  by  their  actions.  The  so-called  disciples  of 
Christ  have  not  accepted  these  social  doctrines;  they 
have  not  lived  by  them,  and  we  have  not  either  more  or 
less  than  they,  but  we  never  claimed  to  have  accepted  aa 
of  divine  origin  those  social  principles. 

But  why,  if  Jesus  was  so  truly  at  one  with  the 
spiritual  elements  of  Judaism — why  was  he  crucified? 
To  state  the  matter  in  brief.. the  Jews  as  a  whole  did  not 
sympathize  with  his  executioners  and  were  not  respon-- 
si])le  for  that  crime.  Among  the  Jews  there  was  but 
one  faction  that  conspired  with  the  Romans  to  silence 
this  tongue  that  spoke  the  message  of  hope  to  the  down- 
trodden and  enslaved.  That  small  faction  was  not  as 
you  might  suppose  recruited  from  the  Pharisees.  Jesus 
probably  belonged  to  no  party.  Men  of  genius  do  not: 
wear  the  uniform  of  any  party;  they  are  a  party  in 

18 


themselves;  a  jDower  in  their  own  self-centered  indi- 
viduality. But.  the  Pharisees  had  no  reason  to  be  dis- 
satisfied with  him.  A^liatever  he  lays  down  in  his  inter- 
pretations of  tile  law  is  sound  pharisaical  doctrine.  To 
break  the  Sabbath  for  the  sake  of  saving  life  is  a  posi- 
tive command  of  the  Pharisee  not  a  new  view  and  a 
larger  liberty  Christianity  brought  about  through  Jesu^ 
and  his  disciples.  We  Jews  have  certainly  learned  the 
old  (Jewish)  truth :  The  Sabbath  is  made  for  man,  not 
3nan  for  the  Sabbath.  Our  official  Christianity,  how- 
ever, needs  again  a  Jesus  to  recall  this  vital  thought  to 
its  memorv.  But  the  rich  amonsr  the  Jews,  the  Sad- 
ducees,  the  high  priestly  famil}^,  with  whose  monopoly 
to  sell  at  high  prices  the  sacrificial  beasts  in  the  Temple 
rmd  to  exchansje  at  usurious  rates  the  foreio-n  coins  for 
the  home  shekels  that  could  only  be  accepted  in  the 
Temple — these  usurers  and  gamblers  in  holy  things  had 
found  in  Jesus  one  who  with  whip  scourged  their 
wretched  agents  from  the  Temple.  These  conspired 
with  their  friend  Pontius  Pilate  to  put  an  end  to  this 
man  that  had  become  so  exceedingly  inconvenient  to 
tliem.  Such  saints  there  are  to  be  found  at  all  times,  in 
all  sects.  To-day  yet  there  are  denominations  who  Avill 
not  have  tlieir  preachers  interfere  with  their  trusts  and 
monojjolirs.  To-day  there  are  Jews  who  would  crucify 
iheir  rabbi,  who  dares  to  call  out  in  protest  against 
gambling  and  money  tyranny  of  whatever  kind.  To- 
day there  are  those  of  whatever  nation,  wdio  call  for  the 
police  and  the  army  whenever  the  preacher  presumes  to 
sound  the  warning  that  ''things  are  rotten  in  Denmark," 
and  pricks  the  gaudy  bubble  of  deceptive  peace  wdiich  is 
internecine  war.  To-day  they  would  nail  to  the  cross 
him  who  cautions  to  beware  of  a  peace  which  arrests 

19 


progress.  They  would  silence  him  who  would  tell  them 
That  tlieirs  is  the  power  to  change  things  peacefully,  but 
if  tlie  opportunity  be  lost,  tlie  cliange  will  come  al)out  in 
the  stonn  of  destruction  and  by  the  rod  of  disaster. 
Small  wonder  then,  that  in  Jerusalem,  tho::0  who 
writhed  under  the  lash  in  their  rude  brutality  called 
upon  the  Eoman  general  to  aid  them  to  silence  this 
rebel ;  in  the  eyes  of  the  Eomans,  Jesns  was  a  rebel.  He 
preached  the  kingdom  come. 

^^Hiat  did  kingdom  come  mean?  Did  it  point  to  a 
kingdom  be3^ond  the  clouds?  It  meant  liberty  for  Ju- 
daism ;  restoration  of  national  independence.  It  meant 
the  driving  out  of  the  Eomans  from  the  sacred  terri- 
tory. This  terrible  import  the  Messianic  message  had 
indeed  when  a  few  decades  later  tlie  Jews  rose  up 
against  the  Romans,  and  in  despair  struggled  two  years 
for  their  freedom,  to  be  disappointed  in  defeat,  and  to  bf 
exterminated  as  a  nation  forever.  Kingdom  come,  then, 
was  the  crying  watchword  against  the  Roman.  The 
Roman  procurator  and  the  JcAvish  high  priest  conspired 
against  him,  and  without  due  process  of  law — I  repeat 
the  statement — without  due  process  of  law,  put  to  death 
him  who  was  the  mouthpiece  of  the  down-trodden,  who 
had  trumpeted  forth  the  hope  of  his  people.  The  JewB 
did  not  reject  him.  What  he  brought  was  their  own; 
what  he  taught  was  their  own  inspiration.  But  the 
Pharisees,  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word,  not  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word — the  hypocrites,  the  wealthy,  the 
priests,  and  the  Roman  governor,  silenced  forever  that 
man  gifted  with  eloquence  such  as  had  come  to  few  men. 

Jesus  was  indeed  one  of  those  rare  men  that  from 
time  to  time  visit  earth,  sounding  with  greater  emphasis 
thoughts  that  had  been  promulgated  before.       I  have 

20 


said — and  Geiger  already  has  raised  this  point  in  con- 
troversy with  Eenan  and  others — that  there  is  no  or- 
iginality in  Jesus's  doctrines.  As  a  matter  of  content 
there  is  not;  for  whatever  he  treats  of,  has  heen  treated 
of  before.  But  as  a  matter  of  expression,  putting  the 
matter  so  as  to  vest  it  with  the  force  of  almost  a  new 
thought,  Jesus — or  whoever  wrote  the  jSTew  Testament — • 
commands  a  place  among  the  few  chosen  of  God.  The 
rough  diamond  he  cut  and  ground  so  that  new  light 
from  every  facet  was  sent  forth  into  the  astonished 
world.  His  words  have  the  stamp  of  great  genius;  not 
so  much  for  what  they  say,  as  for  the  manner  in  whic'n 
they  are  put  forth.  To  the  non- Jewish  world,  even  tlui 
thought  was  new;  and  through  Jesus  the  non- Jewish 
world  learned  a  new  hope,  and  was  led  to  new  heights. 
Jesus,  also,  by  the  light  of  historical  studies,  must  be 
credited  with  a  warm  heart  for  the  common  people."  In 
the  Judaism  of  those  days  there  were  three  sects.  First 
the  Pharisees,  the  aristocracy  of  learning  despising  the 
ignorant.  And  one  cannot  sometimes  help  sharing  or 
pardoning  their  contempt  for  ignorance.  Whoever  had 
to  deal  with  presumptuous  ignorance,  will  at  times  be 
sorely  tempted  to  harbor  the  same  feeling  as  the  old 
Pharisees  had:  that  learning  is,  after  all,  a  privilege 
which  ISTabob  and  Moneybag  with  all  their  wealth  and 
resources  can  never  pre-empt;  that  in  the  sale  of  hu- 
manity, the  mind  well  cultured  weighs  much  more  than 
the  pocket  well  filled. 

The  Pharisees  were  the  sect  of  the  learned  men,  an 
aristocracy  of  scholarship ;  the  Sadduccees  were  an  aris- 
tocracy of  birth,  for  they  were  the  priests.  To  their 
ranks  was  never  admitted  one  not  born  of  priestly  par- 
ents. They,  of  course,  despised  the  common  people.  The 

21 


Essencs,  the  third  but  small  sect;,  living  under  com- 
munistic rules,  were  politically  inditlei*ent.  Men  affect- 
ing outward  i)urity  by  their  dress,  they  shunned  cer- 
tainly the  touch  of  the  common  people,  i'or  the  very 
hem  of  the  garment  of  an  outsider  might  delile  them. 

'Ihe  common  ^Krople  were  thus  despised  by  Pharisee, 
Sadducee  and  Essene.  But  the  prophet  of  Js^azareth 
loved  the  common  2>eoi->it?;»  pSn  ''D^  He  associated 
with  the  outcasts  of  society  The  guests  at  his  table 
were  the  publicans  and  sinners,  the  lost,  often  aban- 
doned women.  He  mingled  with  the  common  people; 
he  spoke  to  them ;  his  disciples  were  of  the  common  peo- 
ple. He  did  not  think  that  learning  was  a  crown  or 
that  birth  did  confer  a  diadem;  that  outward  j^i-^i'ity 
alone  gave  entrance  to  kingdom  come.  But  he  believed 
that  inward  spirituality,  and  that  found  among  all 
classes  of  people,  crowned  with  a  tiara  studded  with  jew- 
els more  costly  than  priestly  diadem  or  laurel  wreath 
of  learning,  or  rough  woven  garment  of  outward  purity. 
Among  the  common  people  he  worked  and  labored;  his 
every  thought  was  consecrated  to  them ;  and  no  wonder 
that  his  name  to-day  yet  is  the  emblem  of  hope  for  the 
down-trodden  and  the  opjoressed  of  all  the  world. 

He  belongs  to  us.  Not  that  we  need  to  go  to  his  books 
for  so-called  new  thought;  not  that  we  need  to  turn  to 
his  life  even  for  inspiration;  for  the  Jew  for  fifteen 
centuries  has  often  had  to  toil  up  Golgotha's  steep  and 
heavy  ascent.  We  bore  a  cross  the  weight  of  which  was 
a  thousandfold  heavier  than  that  whicli  Jesus  earned  to 
the  place  of  his  execution.  The  thorny  crown;  who 
wears  it?  The  Jew  to-day;  the  Jew  yesterday.  He 
will  wear  it  yet  to-morrow.  We  are  prepared  for  new 
torture ;  wq  who  know  what  it  is  to  be  a  Jew.     The  lash ; 

22 


who  felt  it?  Xot  Jesus  alone.  Innumerable  are  those 
of  his  kinsmen  that  felt  the  lash;  who  feel  it  to-day. 
The  gibe  and  jeer  who  has  heard  them?  The  Jew. 
AMio  has  displayed  steadfastness?  Xot  merely  Jesus 
prayed:  ".Xot  my  will  but  thy  will;"  the  Jew  it  was 
who  faltered  not,  because  he  knew  that  reservoir  of 
moral  force :  ''Xot  my  will,  0  God,  but  thy  will:''  ye\, 
what  but  this,  has  been  the  sigh  and  the  stay  of  millions 
of  Jews  these  fifteen  hundred  years  of  tears  and  tor- 
ment? Who  died  with  the  prayer  on  the  lip:  'Tather 
forgive  them,  they  know  not  what  they  are  do- 
ing?" Jesus.  Who  lives  with  the  prayer  on  the 
lip?  The  Jew.  "Father  forgive  them,  they  know 
not  what  they  are  doing,"  is*  the  poem  written 
in  the  stanzas  of  suffering  by  the  Jews  on 
thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  agonizing 
hearts.  Steadfastness  in  the  belief  in  his  own  destiny 
and  duty  exemplified  in  the  life  of  Jesus !  Yes,  nobly 
so !  ''If  it  be  thy  will  that  this  cup  shall  pass  away ;"' 
his  prayer  in  the  awful  night  of  Gethsemane.  "If  it  be 
thy  will  that  this  cup  pass  away,"  is  the  prayer  of  the 
Jews ;  has  been ;  is  now.  But  steadfast  they  remained  ; 
they  die,  if  it  must  be ;  they  live — if  it  be  God's  pleas- 
ure— for  principle's  sake.  So,  what  for  the  outer  world 
was  tokened  by  that  one  life,  millions  of  lives  have  eni- 
blazoned  upon  our  souls.  We  needed  not  higher  in- 
spiriation;  we  had  it  at  home;  he  was  the  reflection  of 
Jewish  inner  life  for  which  the  world  had  waited.  He 
became  its  anchor  and  mooring.  But  it  was  Judaism 
that  sent  out  this  torch-bearer  to  light  up  the  inky  dark- 
ness. Xo;  not  merely  the  liberal  Jew,  but  every  Jew 
who  knows  his  o^vn  history  will  gladly  so  rank  the 
teacher  of  JTazareth.     Xo.     For  ignorance  we  Jews  are 

23 


not  rcsioonsible.       For  the  rantings  and  ravings  of  a 
penny-a-liner  on  one  of  the  daily  journals  of  this  city 
we  are  not  responsible.     I  will  venture  to  say  there  was 
never  a  Jew  in  Chicago  that  objected  to  what  was  said 
from  this  pulpit  about  Jesus,  the  report  to  the  contrary 
was  gotten  up  to  make  a  sensation.     Anything  to  make 
a  sensation.     In  dull  times,  head  lines  printed  in  big 
letters  about  "a  storm  in  the  camp  of  Israel  raised  by 
remarks  on  Jesus"   attract  attention.       But  if  storm 
there  was,  it  was  a  storm  in  a  teakettle,  and  I  doubt 
wliether  any  Jew  with  any  pretention  to  culture,  ob- 
jected then  or  objects  now  to  the  picture  of  Jesus's  char- 
acter as  drawn  on  this  platform.     The  Jew,  of  what- 
ever shade  of  opinion,  is  willing  to  acknowledge  the 
charm,  the  beauty,  the  whole-souled  perfection  of  the 
great  prophet  of  Nazareth.     He  belongs  to  us;  we  have 
not  rejected  him.     The  dream  of  humanity  is  ours. ,  The 
gates  of  this  temple  are  open  to  all.     Any  one  may  join 
us;  we  ask  no  questions.       There  is  no  platform,  no 
movement,  so  broad  as  this  Jewish  movement.       But 
why  should  we  give  up  what  we  have  had  and  have  for 
the*  mere  sake  of  making  a  demonstration  of  our  liber- 
ality?    History  has  not  yet  run  to  the  end.     Tlie  full 
pattern  of  God  is  not  off  the  loom.     The  signs  are  not 
for  tearing  down  the  walls;  the  gates  are  open;  we  are 
ready  to  receive.     Shall  we  step  out  as  long  as  we  are 
driven  back  and  refused  the  welcome?     If  Jesus  were 
to  come  back  to  earth  to-day  they,  the  Christians  would 
not  admit  him  to  their  clubs  because  he  is  a  Jew ;  if  St. 
Paul  were  to  come  to  life  he  would  not  be  received ;  St. 
Peter  would  not  be  allowed  to  guest  at  a  summer  hotel, 
because,  forsooth,  he  is  a  Hebrew.     And  therefore  the 

24 


synagogue  must  continue  to  exist  if  for  no  other  reason, 
than  to  give  Jesus  a  home. 

]\IanY  among  us  deplore  the  existence  of  Judaism. 
Born  of  a  Jewish  mother  they  gTieve  at  the  fatality  of 
their  pedigree.  They  would  be  free.  They  disclaim 
Jewish  religious  sympathies.  "Xo  rabbi  for  them !" 
They  are  kind  enough  to  contribute  to  his  support.  But 
out  of  ])urG  pity !  Tliese  race  Jews  indeed  deserve  the 
rebuffs  the  world  has  ready  for  all  Jews.  Let  them  be 
rejected  by  Ej.iropean  courts  or  American  clubs,  we  have 
no  tear  of  sympathy  to  waste  on  them.  Theirs  is  a  just 
reminder,  that  though  they  would  not  share  Judaism's 
blessings  with  us,  they  bear  our  common  lot.  For  them 
it  is  a  gnawing  shame;  for  us  a  glorious  pride.  For 
the  true  Jew  never  despairs  of  the  ultimate  victory  of 
light  over  darkness.  The  time  will  come  when  better 
Christians  than  -  now  reject,  will  welcome  tJie  better 
Jews,  yea,  better  than  they  who  now  would  desert  the 
post  of  danger,  though  of  duty  and  honor.  The  walls 
then  will  fall.  But  in  the  new  temple  of  humanity,  a 
niche  will  also  be  consecrated  to  the  lowly  Jew  of 
Xazareth,  one  of  that  people  called  to  the  hero's,  the 
martyr's  crown.  A  Jew  was  Jesus,  as  faithful  a  Jew  as 
ever  drew  breath,  and  as  such  not  in  opposition  to  his 
Judaism,  is  he  the  type  of  a  noble-hearted  man !  Amen. 


25 


w 


PAUL,  THE  APOSTLE  OF  HEATHEN  JUDA- 
ISM, OR  CHRISTIANITY. 


Jesus  founded  no  new  religion;  lie  formulated  no 
new  theology;  he  proclaimed  no  new  creed.  Be 
preached  repentance  and  promised  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven ;  his  instructions  were  ^^regnant  with  richest 
elhical  thought.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  un- 
doubtedly the  most  abundant  casket  of  jewels  drawn 
from  the  treasure  house  of  high  moral  inspiration. 
There  is  no  other  necklace  so  valuable  as  this;  the 
world  has  prized  it;  and  as  long  as  suns  will  rise  and 
moons  will  wax  and  wane  in  the  nightly  sky,  as  long 
as  man  has  not  lost  that  appreciation  for  purity  whicn 
is  the  best  heirloom  given  to  him,  these  words  of  Jesus 
will  come  to  the  soul  as  the  whispered  proclamation  of 
the  highest.  A  greater  contrast  cannot  well  be  con- 
ceived, than  that  presented  by  the  official  literature  of 
the  church  three  hundred,  and  two  hundred  years  after 
Jesus'  time,  to  his  own — if  his  own  they  were — words 
and  appeals.  Prof.  Hatch,  in  his  Hibbert  Lectures  on 
the  Influence  of  Greek  Thought  upon  the  Development 
of  Christianity,  calls  attention  especially  to  this  con- 
trast. Christianity,  says  he,  begins  with  ethics:  its 
passion  is  kindled  by  immorality;  its  anger  is  aroused 
by  unrighteousness;  its  hopes  center  in  the  establish- 
ment of  a  kingdom  of  justice,  and  the  patli,  narrow  and 

1 


steep,  to  salvation  runs  along  the  lieiglits  of  moral  en- 
deavor and  moral  uplook.  The  official  church,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  anchored  to  a  creed;  belief  is  essential, 
practice  is  held  under  contempt;  and  as  the  impulse  to 
creed  grows  stronger  with  the  circling  years,  conduct 
and  character  are  considered  to  be  mere  dross — wortii- 
less  chaff  to  be  carried  away  by  the  wind;  while  faith, 
and  faith  alone  is  proclaimed  to  be  the  key  wherewith 
to  imlock  the  gateway  of  the  hereafter,  open  only  to 
those  til  at  accept,  and  closed  to  all  others — be  it  through 
ignorance  or  be  it  through  perversion — that  do  not  ac- 
cept the  fundamental  dogma. 

Who  is  responsible  for  this  utter  change  of  attitude? 
G-reek  thought  and  Greek  philosophy  have  dug  this  new 
channel,  along  wLicli  the  waters  welling  from  the  Pools 
of  Siloah  ran  along  with  ever  more  sluggish  pace,  while 
they  might  have  flowed,  had  they  been  permitted  to 
obey  their  own  original  roadbed,  in  limpid,  crystal 
purity.  Their  enforced  indolence  made  them  an  easy 
prey  to  the  fickle  sand  sweeping  down  ujwn  them  from 
the  banks  of  tlie  new  excavation,  and  threatened  to 
throttle  them  in  a  swamp  of  their  own  making.  The 
focus,  so  to  speak,  in  wliich  sunlight  from  Palestine's 
hills  and  thought  waves  from  Athen's  acropolis  met, 
was  the  mind  of  Paul,  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  No 
man  has  affected  the  destiny  of  our  family  so  deeply 
and  so  permanently  as  has  this  tent-maker  of  Tarsus. 
Speak  of  the  mighty  heroes  on  battle  field  and  in  battle 
heat  unmoved,  who  thundered  forth,  over  legions  too 
numerous  to  be  counted,  the  word  of  advance;  speak 
of  the  heroes  of  peace  that  spend  their  days  in  the 
search  after  truth,  mounting  the  weary  steps  leading  to 
the  watch-tower  of  the  night,  to  communicate  with  the 


'to' 

2 


stars  above,  or  descending  into  the  very  bowels  of  the 
earth  to  read  the  stony  inscriptions  treasuring  the  very 
records  of  our  earth^s  creation;  speak  of  those  heroes  of 
the  mind  that  impatient  of  fragmentary  knowledge,  at 
personal  sacrifice  of  time  and  treasure,  sally  forth  into 
untrodden  territories  and  brave  the  darts  of  the  fever 
and  the  poisoned  arrows  of  the  hostile  savages  in  their 
quest  after  information ;  speak  of  the  giants  of  industry 
"*"hat  link  together  distant  zones  by  ligatures  of  iron  and 
steel;,  or  surgeons  that  cut  the  umbilical  cord  binding 
daughter  island  to  mother  continent.  None  of  these 
has  so  materially,  so  deeply,  so  lastingly  stamped  his 
own  thought  upon  the  human  race  as  has,  and  does  to  the 
present  day,  the  poor,  misshapen  Jew,  Eoman  citizen 
though  he  was,  whose  cradle  stood  at  Tarsus  and  whose 
school  years  were  spent  at  the  feet  of  Jerusalem's 
patriarchs.  Should  ever,  by  some  hap  or  other,  the 
greatest  lights  be  extinguished  in  the  galaxy  spanning 
the  centuries,  longer  than  any  other  star  would  scintil- 
late above  in  power  his  name.  Yea,  none  has  so  deeply, 
I  repeat,  affected  the  destiny  of  the  human  family  as 
has  Paul  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  On  his  account 
wars  were  waged;  by  his  doctrine  humanity  was  cleft 
into  hostile  camps ;  his  words  have  been  the  burden  of 
many  a  human  soul  and  again  have  been  the  stay  of  as 
many  other  human  hearts.  He  has  cited  the  demons 
of  terror  to  gather  around  the  bed  where  agonized  poor 
human  mortal  clay  in  terror  and  anxiety  of  what  would 
come  after  the  final  struggle  of  life ;  and  he  has  winged 
■uith  confidence  of  peaceful  hope  and  assurance  other 
souls  impatient  to  shuffle  off  this  mortal  coil  and  lo 
enter  the  truer  kingdom  of  light,  of  love  and  of  life. 
^^^latever  our  own  religious  opinions  may  be,  this  fact 
4  3 


alone  slioiild  aspiire  for  liis  words  and  his  doctrines  a 
careful  and  a  close  attention. 

We  cannot  nnderstand  Paul  without  first  compre- 
hending the  peculiar  change  wrought  by  the  contact  of 
Jewish  thought  with  Greek  doctrines  before  his  coming, 
which  resulted  in  a  certain  phase  of  Judaism.  Paul 
would  be  an  impossibility,  original  as  he  is,  w'ithout 
Philo  before  him,  without  Alexandrian  Judaism  as  the 
mother  well  for  him  to  drink  from.  Even  the  most  or- 
iginal minds  are  linked  to  their  antecedents;  none — 
unless  it  be  in  modern  time,  where  originality  is  as 
cheap  as  the  mud  in  our  city  streets — none  is  self-made 
in  the  work  shop  where  thought  spins  its  eternal 
threads.  \V\mi  tlie  best,  what  the  brightest  ofl  our  kind 
may  hope  to  accomplish  is  to  w^eave  a  new  design  into 
the  pattern,  but  the  threads  which  we  employ  and  which 
we  cast  backward  and  forward  with  the  flying  shuttle 
are  taken  from  the  bobbin  on  which  are  wound  the  re- 
flections of  the  men  who  lived  before  us.  There  is 
historical  continuity  and,  therefore,  historical  con- 
nectedness in  the  evolution  of  thought.  We  stand  on 
our  past,  and  so  did  Paul  rise  to  his  giant  stature  on 
the  shoulders  of  tliose  tliat  preceded  him.  When  Jew 
came  first  in  contact  with  Greek,  a  new  opportunity 
opened  for  him,  'No  greater  distance  can  possibly  be 
^  imagined  between  two  poles  of  thought  tlian  is  that 
■  '  which  gapes  between  Greek  and  Jewish  mind.  The 
Greek  is  typically  Aryan,  as  such  it  inclines  to  analysis, 
the  Jewish  to  synthesis ;  the  Greek  scales  to  truth  by  the 
round  of  details;  the  Jew  soars  to  truth  by  the  energy 
of  sentiment!  and  feeling;  the  Jew  is  int^ensely  personal, 
the  (Jreek  is  as  intensely  abstract;  the  Jew  reads  world 
and  nature  in  terms  of  an  equation  of  personality  in 

4 


which  the  two  factors  are  rigidly  kept  apart;  the  or- 
iginal Semitic  God  is  indeed  living  alone  be- 
yond the  world ;  he  governs  the  world,  but  he  is  not  im- 
manent in  it.  Th(3  original  Semitic  God  idea  has  been 
preserved  in  the  Koran,  or  perhaps  I  had  better  say 
carried  rlierein  to  its  furthest  consistency.  God  and 
man  are' separated,  and  the  cleavage  between  them  is  as 
impassable  as  is  a  gulch  cut  by  the  water  courses  in  a 
rugged  mountain.  Even  later  Mohammedan  theolog}" 
and  philosophy  were  unable  to  span  that  chasm  with  a 
bridge  steady  and  secure.  This  Semitic  God  idea  is 
modified,  of  course,  in  the  theology  of  the  prophets;  but 
taking  it  as  a  whole  it  remains  unshakably  true,  that 
Mohammed,  and  not  Spinoza,  is  strikingly  Semitic. 

Universe  and  God  are  two  divided  poles  for  the 
Semite,  while  the  Greek  rather  views  them  as  one,  dif- 
ferentiated imder  two  aspects.  The  difficulty  for  Jew 
and  Greek  to  understand  each  other  was  not  the  result 
of  difference  of  language  alone.  The  Greek  could  not 
conceive  of  an  extra-mundane  God;  the  gods  of  the 
Greeks  lived  in  the  world;  they  did  not  merely  send 
forth  the  storms  their  messengers  and  command  the 
lightning  to  run  on  their  swift  errands;  they  did  not 
merely  bid  the  waters  stand  still,  or  the  sea  to  rise  in 
wrath — the  gods  were  the  water,  the  gods  w^ere  the 
winds.     God  was  immanent,  not  transcendental. 

But  Jew  and  Greek  a  few  centuries  before  Paul  had 
come  into  closer  communion.  Alexander  the  Great,  iii 
his  ambition  to  found  a  world  empire,  had  mixed  the 
ingredients  of  a  new  humanity  with  the  pestle  of  war. 
Stamping  and  grinding  humanity  in  the  mortar  he 
forced  into  closest  contact  Greek  and  Jew.  In  conse- 
quence of  this,  arose    the    necessity    for    the     Jewish 

5 


til  inkers  in  Alexandria  to  present  their  to  the  Greek 
utterly  inconceivable  system,  in  a  form  that  might 
bring  it  nearer  to  the  understanding  of  the  Greek  mind. 
Certain  concepts  found  eA^en  in  certain  books  of  their 
old  Hebrew  Bible^,  stood  them  in  good  stead  for  this 
purpose.  The  so-called  wisdom  literature,  in  itself  free 
from  national  bias  and  therefore  more  readily  appealing 
to  the  sympathies  of  the  Hellenized  Jews  of  Egypt, 
proved  the  suggestive  source  of  mediating  thoughts;  for 
in  these  books  wisdom  appears  almost  in  the  light  of  an 
independent  essence  under  God  through  which  the 
world  is  guided.  On  the  other  hand,  as  they  became 
more  familiar  with  Greek  thought,  they  found  some- 
thing analogous  to  this  in  Plato's  system.  Greek 
philosophy  had  evolved  the  poetic  notion,  that  God  in 
creating  the  world  had  conceived  first  in  his  own  mind 
the  perfect  universe;  actual  creation  was  merely  cloth- 
ing with  visible  reality  the  idea  which  had  taken  life 
and  shape  in  the  mind  of  the  Creator.  Platonism,  or 
to  be  more  accurate,  Neo-Platonism  reigned  supreme 
in  the  academies  of  Alexandria.  The  view  that  God 
had  associated  with  him  a  second  energy,  the  ideas 
through  which  he  acted  upon  the  world,  lay  ready  to 
hand.  The  abstract  God  in  his  sublime  majesty  was 
out  of  nexus  with  the  universe;  he  had  deputized  the 
ideas  to  act  in  his  behalf.  The  Jewish  mind  and  tlio 
Greek  had  thus  apparently  come  to  the  same  conclusion. 
The  Jewish  current  had  reflected  divine  wisdom  as  the 
potency  of  creation;  the  Greek  had  emphasized  a  similar 
view,  that  God's  ideas  are  the  principles  by  which  the 
world  is  called  into  being.  Here  was  now  promise  of 
reconciliation;  the  two  lines  of  thought  had  this  point 
in     common.     Here     they "    intersected.       Idea     and 

6 


"Chol-limah''  are  the  logos,  divine  reason,  the  mediator 
which  the  Greek  mind  needed  to  link  world  to  God  and 
man  to  his  supreme  creator.  It  is  a  Jewish  thinker, 
Philo,  contemporaneous  with  Jesus^  who  systematizes 
this  peculiar  view  of  the  universe.  God  creates  the 
world  through  logos;  God  acts  on  the  world  through. 
logos.  Tn  Philo,  it  is  not  clear  whether  logos  be  merely 
a  hypostasis,  projection  of  God  himself,  or  it  be  a 
second  personality  of  God  himself.  At  all  events, 
Philonism  had  thoroughly  prepared  the  soil  for  the 
planting  of  the  seed  from  which  Paulinian  theology 
could  grow.  From  Philo  it  was  but  one  step  to  Paul's 
dogma.  The  fourth  gospel,  whatever  the  age  of  its 
composition^  before  or  after  the  epistles,  is  the  echo  of 
Hellenistic  Alexandrian  speculations.  It  identifies 
Christ  with  the  logos.  It  is,  now,  not  a  wild  guess,  that 
in  the  island  of  Tarsus,  his  birthplace,  Paul,  who  ma:^t 
have  been  a  bright  young  man,  had  come  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  conception  that  a  spiritual  mediatorship 
existed  between  God  and  the  world.  When  at  an  early 
age  he  left  Tarsus  to  go  to  Jerusalem,  before  probably 
the  end  had  come  to  Jesus — though  he  personally  never 
came  into  concourse  and  contact  with  the  prophet  of 
N'azareth,  the  schools  which  he  attended,  the  academy 
in  which  he  was  enrolled  a  pupil  of  Gamaliel,  a  grand- 
son of  the  famous  Hillel,  must  not  have  been  free  from 
this  teaching,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Galilean 
hills  must  have  sounded  the  wonder  deeds  of  Jesus,  re- 
vered as  none  other  by  a  certain  class  of  people.  After 
the  death  of  Jesus,  it  seems  that  Paul  went  a  second 
time  from  Tarsus  to  Jerusalem,  where  he  met  with 
some  of  the  disciples  who  had  come  in  contact  with 
Jesus.     It  is  more  than  likely  that  he  heard  from  their 

7  ' 


lips  the  story  of  his  life  adorned  even  so  early  Avitli 
legend  grown  on  tlie  rich  soil  of  love  and  theologic};! 
conceptions.  This  story  could  not  but  liave  made  a 
deep  impression  on  him;  thougli — a  phenomenon  so 
often  noticed  in  the  history  of  great  men — the  first  im- 
pression was  that  of  resistance  to  what  he  later  burned 
to  proclaim  from  the  very  housetops. 

Paul  was  of  noble  birth.  Xobility  in  those  days  was 
not  of  the  blood  exactly;  it  was  certainly  not  of  wealth. 
\Mio  in  those  days  constituted  the  aristocracy  among 
the  Jews ;  those  whom  to  meet  was  deemed  a  rare 
privilege?  Was  it  the  millionaire?  Ah  !  no ;  the  touch 
of  his  hand  was  not  tlie  boon  coveted.  Was  it  the  high 
priest,  in  ignorance  but  in  pomp  and  state  performing 
the  measured  functions  of  his  office?  No;  learning 
wove  the  crown  of  glory  in  those  days-;  and  Paul  was 
descended  from  a  family  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  in 
whom  learnino^  liad  been  an  ambition  transmitted  from 
father  to  son.  In  Jerusalem  he  was  brought  into  closest 
sympathy  with  the  Pharisees.  Gamaliel  at  the  head  of 
the  Academy  was  his  own  personal  instructor.  In  such 
surroundings  he  could  not  but  become  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  Judaism  as  polarized  in  the  Pharisaic  axis. 
He  grew  up  a  strict  observer  of  the  law  and  well  versed 
in  the  dialectics  which  anchored  tlie  legal  enactments 
•upon  the  rock  bed  of  the  Pentatcuchal  texts.  The  first 
impulse,  then,  when  he  heard  from  lips  of  Nazarenes 
the  story  of  the  life  and  the  death  of  Jesus,  tlicir 
prophet  and  IMessiah^  was  one  of  resistance  and  horror. 
We  know,  from  the  story  of  his  life,  that  among  the 
persecutors  of  the  5'oung,  rising  Christian  communities, 
none  was  ]:)erhaps  so  zealous  and  displayed  such  bitter 
fanaticism  as  Saul  of  Tarsus.     TTe  assisted  at  the  lapi- 

8 


dation  of  Steplieri,  the  brother  of  Jesus;  he  was  ever 
thereafter  fired  Avith  passion  to  crush  out  tlie  growing 
heresy;  l^e  even  went  so  far,  weaponed  with  a  letter  of 
introduction  from  higli  authorities,  as  to  repair  to 
Damascus  in  order  to  denounce  the  refugees  of  tlie 
Christian  brotherhood,  fled  to  that  city  for  safety.  On 
the  way  to  Damascus,  an  event  took  place  which  turned 
out  to  be  for  him  of  sublime  and  supreme  moment, — 
marking  a  crisis  in  his  whole  life  and  giving  ^n  oppo- 
site turn  to  his  ambitious  activity.  It  is  certain  that 
he  beheld  Jesus;  he  himself  says  so.  He  heard  the 
master's  voice;  he  was  met  by  him  on  the  road  to 
Damascus.  Glorious  light  seemed  to  flood  the  horizon, 
and  in  that  light  he  read  the  new  promise  and  the  ne^r 
revelation.  Bungling  rationalism,  the  stock  in  trade 
of  men  like  Ingersoll  and  others  of  his  ilk,  legitimate 
one  hundred  years  ago,  but  to-day  entirely  out  of 
rh^mie  with  the  thought  of  modern  science  on 
these  questions,  shrugging  its  shoulders  with  affec- 
tation of  superior  wisdom,  would  claim  that 
either  St.  Paul  invented  the  story  in  order 
to  shield  his  change  of  heart  or,  if  he  saw  anything,  he 
merely  was  dazzled  by  the  zigzagging  of  lightning  from 
the  sky  above.  Orthodoxy,  again,  has  claimed  and  docs 
claim,  that  the  Apostle  actually  did  behold  in  the  flesh 
him  who  was  crucified.  How  do  tue  account  for  the 
phenomena?  ^lodern  psychology  has  cast  the  light  of 
its  searching  torch  into  the  darkest  nooks  and  corners  of 
the  human  soul.  We  have  recognized  to-da}^  the  possi- 
bility of  autohypnotism,  '^self -suggestion"  of  certain 
phenomena.  Eivet  j^our  attention  on  one  subject,  be 
bound  up  in  it  so  that,  as  it  were,  in  it  you  lose  your  own 
identity;  it  will  haimt  you  in  your  dreams  and  it  will 

9 


persist  at  your  elbow  in  your  waking  hours.  Have  you 
'not  had  similar  experiences?  Have  A'ou  not  heard  voices 
from  the  land  beyond;  have  3^ou  not  occasionally  in  the 
busy  streets  in  Chicago  turned  to  see  whether  face  was 
behind  you  or  form  had  followed  you?  And  to  a 
greater  extent  than  this,  though  in  the  same  psycho- 
logical process  involved,  come  such  phenomena  to  great, 
minds  stirred  up  to  their  depths.  A  man  organized  as 
Saul  of  Tarsus  was,  could  he  escape  pondering  upon  the 
peculiarities  presented  to  him  by  the  few  Christian-} 
wlio  then  liad  with  the  tendrils  of  a  loving  soul  embraced 
the  story  and  the  life  of  Jesus  of  Xazareth  as  a  promise 
of  the  near  dawn  of  kingdom  come? 

He  could  not ;  he  had  heard  the  story ;  he  was  a  Jew 
of  the  Jews,  strict  in  the  performance  of  his  duties  aris- 
ing under  the  law.  He  must  have — for  such  theo- 
logical minds  are  not  born  in  an  hour — he  must  often 
before  have  asked  himself  the  question :  What  is  the 
root  of  this  constant  dissatisfaction,  which  is  the  heir- 
loom of  every  thinking  mind  and  every  feeling  heart? 
Why  is  it  that  we  crave  for  satisfaction  and  it  as  per- 
sistently eludes  us?  Why  is  it  that  the  law  does  not 
satisfy  me ;  why  is  it  that  I,  the  strict  adherent  of  legal 
Judaism,  am  in  constant  danger  of  violating  the  law? 
Some  of  you  who  have  been  brought  up  under  Jewish 
orthodox  influence  know  what  is  implied  in  being  a 
loyal  Jew  of  the  old  school:  not  a  motion  of  the  hand 
but  is  tied  to  an  article  of  the  code ;  not  a  twitching  of 
the  finger  but  v/ill  l)rush  against  some  other  paragraph 
of  the  law.  The  conclusion  is  not  far  off — though  not 
altogether  true — that  one  is  not  free,  but  bound  under 
the  law,  a  slave  under  law.  That  mechanical  legalism 
cannot  still  the  inborn  yearning,  is  an  unavoidable  ex- 

10 


perience.  It  adds  a  new  thorn  to  the  flesh.  This  ex- 
perience must  have  been  PaiiPs.  He  must  have  fretted 
and  chafed  under  the  "Yoke  of  tlie  Law,"  for 
he  conmitted  the  error  of  overlooking  the  spirituality 
of  the  "Law.'^  He  confounded  Thorah  with  nomob- 
and  reduced  Judaism  to  a  mere  chain  of  legal  enact- 
ments. And  now  he  came  in  contact  with  a  community 
of  men,  Jews,  too — for  the  early  Christians  were  Jews — 
observing  the  law  as  scrupulously  as  he  did,  but  who  ap- 
parently had  found  the  peace  he  craved,  their  eyes 
glistened  with  a  hope  new  to  him;  they  braved  death 
to  witness  to  their  new  confidence;  they  expatriated 
themselves  even  and  complained  not.  He  had  been  a 
spectator  at  the  execution  of  Stephen  and  must  have 
been  touched  by  his  heroism.  How  often  has  death  on 
the  gallows  been  the  portal  for  the  propagation  of  an 
idea?  For  you  cannot  retard  the  march  of  ideas  by 
hanging  a  few  wretches  who  are  its  exponents.  They 
may  kill  till  doomsday  in  Paris  the  demented  men  that 
throw  the  bombs,  but  the  idea  which  even  through  their 
barbarous  perversion  would  have  a  hearing,  will  knock 
at  the  gate  until  it  has  performed  its  errand.  The  very 
stone  cast  of  Jesus's  brother  became  the  corner-stone 
of  the  church,  and  Paul,  assisting  at  the  sacrifice,  could 
not  defend  himself  against  the  impression  left  by  the 
fate  of  him  who  was  executed.  Plead  for  capital  pun- 
ishment, as  has  been  done  in  this  city  of  late  by  men 
even  who  claim  to  have  the  monopoly  of  all  ethical 
ideas,  if  you  must;  capital  punishment  is  absolutely 
impotent,  and  it  is  and  remains  a  relic  of  barbarism. 
Not  one  that  is  executed  but  becomes  in  a  certain  sense 
a  hero.  Tlie  worst  criminal  "dying  game"  is  not  a 
deterrent     but     an     incentive     to     his     comrades     in 

11 


crime!  Not  alone  once,  a  thousand  times  has 
history  verified  this  judgment;  the  death  of 
Stephen  is  one  of  the  many  i:)roofs  of  this  his- 
torical proclamation.  On  the  way  to  Damascus  he  must 
have  yielded  more  and  more  at  every  step  to  his  pry- 
occui)ation,  pondering  and  pondering  the  mystery  of  his 
own  soul  and  the  fortitude  of  the  persecuted  until  his 
nerves  were  strung  to  tlicir  last  tension.  Thought  and 
nerve  are  inseparable  companions.  Cool,  calm  men  that 
cannot  be  disturbed,  but  rarely  explore  the  depths  of 
passionate  convictions.  Nervous  temperaments  are  the 
prerequisites  of  such  as  would  unhinge  the  gates,  be- 
hind which  are  held  the  chariots  of  onward  moving 
mankind.  Creative  genius  cannot  light  its  tapers  m 
the  rainbow  colors  of  an  iceberg,  tipped  with  sun-light. 
Its  lamp  blazes  forth  where  Vulcan  heats  the  hearth  and 
blows  the  bellows.  Every  prophet  is  of  the  volcanic 
guild.  And  Paul  had  within  his  bones  the  "consuming 
fire.^' 

With  his  thoughts  concentrated  on  this  one  ruling 
idea  and  perplexity,  the  crisis  came  to  him  as  it  did  to 
the  prophets  of  old.  Tliere  stood  before  him — as 
though  in  flesh  and  bone— the  vision.  His  ears  tingled 
with  voices.  Did  they  have  their  cradle  within  him? 
Wiiat  that  to  him  ?  He  saw,  he  heard— and  he  suc- 
cumbed. The  vexation  he  had  puzzled  over  so  long  had 
at  last  overpowered  him.  And  he  came  to  Damascus  a 
changed  man;  Saul  the  persecutor  was  changed  into 
Paul  the  Apostle. 

His  further  personal  history  does  not  interest  us  in 
this  connection.  We  are  in  quest  not  so  much  of  a  de- 
tailed itinerary'  of  his  checkered  life,  as  we  are  of  a  suc- 
cinct exposition  of  his  fundamental  ideas.     Tlie  Jesus 

12 


that  he  had  seen  on  his  way  to  Damascus  now  took  in 
his  system  the  place  of  the  ''logos'  of  Philo.  He  be- 
came the  "mediator"  between  God  and  man.  He  was' 
one  with  God.  Paul  could  all  the  more  readily  so  con- 
ceive of  /o^os-Jesus,  as  in  the  rabbinical  theology  the 
Thorah  was  represented  as  pre-existent  in  God,  God's 
veritable  only  born  son;  and  to  it  was  assigned,  though 
rather  poetically  than  dogmatically,  the  mediating  char- 
acter. But  whence  the  need  of  a  mediator?  Prom  the 
first,  Paul  in  his  epistles  is  busy  discussing  the  relation 
of  man  to  God.  Are  God  and  man  at  peace,  or  are  they 
divided?  Psychology  seems  to  point  to  the  second  mem- 
ber of  the  alternative.  Man  is  hounded  by  dissatisfac- 
tion, and  still  has  the  craving  for  perfection,  thoii 
he  cannot  attain  unto  it.  Led  by  this  common  experi- 
ence, Paul  is  led  into  a  fundamental  error — upon  which 
rests  his  whole  S3^stem.  He  confounds  the  inward 
gnawing  sense  of  dissatisfaction  and  imperfection  with 
sin,  and  he  makes  of  sin,  not  the  violation  of  one  lawt 
or  another,  but  a  state.  Sin  is  a  state!  Originally 
perfection  was  man's  dower.  But  he  lost  it.  Sin  is 
the  curse  brought  upon  the  race  by  its  own  ancestors. 
It  is  of  Adam;  and  through  Adam  has  come  upon  all 
descended  from  Adam.  Originally  man  was  free  from 
this  dissatisfaction;  originally  man  was  made  perfect; 
but  Adam  sinned,  and  his  sin  fixed  its  own  resulting 
condition  upon  all  of  his  children.  The  idea  of  trans- 
missal  of  guilt  is  not  Jewish.  The  Semite  seems,  how- 
ever, to  have  inclined  to  the  view  that  character 
depends  upon  ancestry.  (See  Wellhausen.  Skizzen 
III.  p.  194.)  Jewish  law  recognizes  to  a  certain 
extent  the  heredity  of  evil,  but  limits  the  operation 
to   four   generations.      Yahweh,   Yahwch,   All-merciful 

13 


and  gracious,  preserving  his  love  unto  thousands  of 
generations,  but  visiting  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the 
sons,  tlie  sous  of  the  sons  again  to  the  fourth  generation. 
Further  tlian  tliis,  according  to  the  Jewish  notion,  the 
baneful  effect  of  sin  does  not  extend.  I  will  not  at- 
tempt to  prove  the  correctness  of  this  limitation;  per- 
haps natural  science  may  take  exception  to  this,  and 
have  cogent  reasons  to  insist  that  a  still  more  remote 
ancestor  than  the  great  grandfather  is  responsible  for 
our  shortcomings.  I  merely  would  recall  the  fact  thai. 
Jewish  thought,  when  emphasizing  the  antithesis  be- 
tween the  everlasting  blessing  of  good,  and  the  limited 
visitation  of  evil,  fixes  the  fourth  generation  as  the  self- 
extinction  of  sin.  Moreover,  Ezekiel  announces  most 
clearly  that  son  shall  not  die  for  the  guilt  of  the  father. 
Among  the  Greeks  this  idea  was  greatl}^  spread.  The 
old  Greek  tragedies  are  written  in  the  same  fundamental 
keys  in  which  Paul's  proclamation  runs.  The  Greek 
dramatists  speculate  on  and  operate  with  black  Ate,  the 
black  fate  of  sin  that  roots  in  the  family  and  is  trans- 
mitted from  generation  to  generation,  until  expiation  or 
atonement  is  made. 

In  Paul  the  notion  of  transmissal  of  guilt,  arrested 
merely  by  expiation,  is  Greek,  not  Jewish,  however 
much  he  may  strain  in  true  Rabbinical  fashion  Bibilic?il 
texts  to  prove  his  point.  That  a  substitute  may 
neutralize  the  consequences  of  some  other's  deeds  is  al-^o 
a  tliought  which  the  Jewish  mind  has  not  evolved.  It 
rises  from  the  back-ground  of  ancient  tri1)al  organiza- 
tiou :  and  the  involved  institution  of  the  blood  avenger. 
Blood  for  blood,  in  which  the  life  of  one  of  the 
clan  does  answer  for  the  life  of  the  other.  The  Gael 
Haddam    misapplied,    is    root  to    Paul's    idea    of    vi- 

14 


carious  atonement.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand 
were  not  disinclined  to  such  a  view.  For  instance  in 
Prometheus  Bound  b}^  Aeschylus,  Hermes  addresses 
stubborn  and  suffering-  Prometheus  thus:  ''^Of  such 
agony  hope  not  the  end,  before  a  substitute  for  thy  tor- 
ture, a  god,  appears;  then  have  thee  ready  for  thee  to 
descend  to  sunless  Hades."  We  have  some  idea  of  a 
god  offering  himself  a  vicarious  atonement  for  the  sin 
of  Prometheus;  and  before  such  expiation,  he  cannot  - 
be  free  I.  Of  Greek  origin  thus  appears  this  element  ol 
Paul's  soteriology.  Sin  is  death.  Redemption  there- 
fore includes  the  victory  over  death.  He  who  came  to 
save  the  world,  rises  from  the  dead.  The  notion  of  the 
resurrection  was  familiar  to  the  Jews.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  liscuss  the  mooted  question  when  and  whenci- 
this  doctrine  formed  a  foothold  in  Jewish  thought.  In 
the  Pharisaic  hope,  it  was  a  cardinal  element.  How- 
ever, Paul  gives  it  a  new  direction.  In  the  twist  which 
he  gave  the  familiar  notion,  no  Jew^  had  entertained  it. 
A  national  hope  was  dwarfed  into  a  single  event,  in 
turn  forced  to  bolster  a  dogmatic  construction.  As  in 
this  case,  so  in  many  more  Paul  borrows  his  terms  and 
ideas  even  from  current  Jewish  phraseology;  but  in 
each  instance  he  applies  his  material  in  a  way  anti- 
Jewish.  In  the  Jewish  Haggada,  e.  g.,  the  indications 
are  not  few  that  certain  conceptions  had  been  current 
among  the  Jews.  But  this  is  the  difference :  In  Paul's 
system  they  are  crystalized  into  a  dogma,  in  the  Jewish 
Haggada  they  are  poetic  solutions. 

The  deterioration  consequent  upon  the  '^fall'^  are 
dwelt  on  in  the  Haggada  of  the  rabbis,  but  their  state- 
ments are  translucent  legends,  not  opaque  and  obscure 
doomaa?.     Before  Adam  sinned  he  w^as  so  tall  that  hi? 

15 


of  the  world  1 3  the  other ;  when  he  sinned,  God  laid  his 
hand  ujion  hiin  and  reduced  him  to  the  common  mortal 
size.  The  llaggada  operates  also  with  the  equation,  sin 
and  death  and  satan  and  serpent.  But  it  cannot  be  re- 
peated too  olten,  these  extravagances  are  indulged  in 
for  pur])oses  of  homiletic  applications  of  Biblical  texts. 
As  dogmas  these  legends  are  anti- Jewish.  Judaism, 
whatever  its  qualification,  rejects  the  dogma  of  original 
sin,  and  tlie  consequent  need  of  Justification  by  faith  in 
the  vicarious  atonement  of  the  second  Adam,  came  to 
wash  away  with  his  blood  the  sin  of  the  first.  The  dis- 
tinction betA\een  the  grace  of  God  and  his  justice,  so 
fundamental  in  Paul's  dogmatic  exposition,  is  not  a  free 
inveution  of  his.  The  "mercy-seat''  and  the  "throne 
of  justice"  of  God  are  standing  figures  of  speech  in  Eab- 
binical  sermons.  But  as  Judaism,  whatever  may  De 
said  to  the  contrary,  did  never  teach  a  God  of  wrath, 
wIjo  must  be  propitiated  by  blood — See  Micah's  words 
in  the  sixth  chapter  of  his  prophecy —  the  whole  theory 
of  Paul  is  a  departure  from,  not  an  exposition  of  Juda- 
ism. As  Philo  views  everything  in  the  0.  T.  as  a  sym- 
bol and  allegory,  so  Paul  regards  it  as  a  type.  Adam 
is  type.  The  sacrificial  ritual  is  typical  of  the  one  final 
supreme  sacrifice.  His  antithesis  between  law_  and  love 
falls  into  the  same  category.  Though  the  0.  T.  itself 
protests  that  ''Love  God"  demands  not  sacrifice,  Juda- 
ism is  regarded  as  mere  legalism.  What  is,  according 
to  Paul,  the  province  of  this  old  Jewish  law,  and  why 
was  the  world  left  to  its  cruel  fate  so  long?  Why  were 
men  by  God  abandoned  so  long  to  go  to  perdition?  Paul 
was  a  thinker.  He  felt  the  difficulty  of  the  question. 
In  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  he  gives  the  answer.     God 

16 


delayed  redemption  so  long  that  the  world  under  sin 
might  recognize  that  life  outside  of  God  was  the  high- 
road to  perdition.  Sin  is  the  very  glory  of  God.  Sin 
had  to  run  its  destiny,  so  that  in  the  conviction  of  the 
gentile  world  should  come  at  last  the  day  when,  despair 
seizing  them,  they  found  their  culture  broken  reeds  on 
which  to  support  themselves.  The  case  of  the  Jews 
was  somewhat  different.  The  law,  God-given  would  in- 
deed make  perfect  were  it  possible  for  man  to  fulfill  the 
law,  but  the  law  cannot  be  fulfilled.  From  his  premises, 
Paul  is  right  in  saying  that  the  law,  instead  of  decreas- 
ing sin,  increases  it.  There  is  none  that  is  perfect,  that 
is  the  experience  of  the  law.  The  law  in  thus,  instead 
of  diminishing  the  sense  of  sin,  enhancing  it,  was  a 
pedagogue  unto  Christ.  The  Law  must  yield  to  faith. 
Faith  in  Jesus,  who  conquered  through  his  resurrection 
death,  and  who  was  born  into  this  world  without  sin, 
gives  us  back  the  heirloom  taken  from  us  by  Adam's 
disobedience.  Those  that  accept  shall  enter  into  new 
life ;  they  are  regenerated,  born  anew  as  it  were,  a  new 
nature  put  into  them. 

Tlie  young  church  was  soon  ablaze  with  the  contro- 
versy about  the  furtlier  obligatory  character  of  the  law. 
Was  the  new  message  for  the  world,  or  was  it  merely  for 
the  Jew?  Paul  took  the  bold  step:  he  planted  himself 
on  the  basis,  tliat  as  the  law  was  merely  a  pedagogue 
imto  Christ,  with  the  coming  of  Christ  the  law  was  for 
the  Christian  abrogated.  St.  Peter,  the  Jewish  apostle, 
and  the  Jew- Christians,  claimed  that  the  law  was  not  set 
aside;  that  in  order  to  join  the  new  community,  circum- 
cision was  essential.  Had  Paul  not  taken  the  stand  he 
did,  Christianity  would  not  have  spread.  Judaism  be- 
fore Paul's  time  had  begun  to  extend  its  influence,  but 

17 


the  barriers  of  the  law  kept  out  a  waiting  world.  In 
tlie  clays  of  Paul  men  were  yearning  for  a  new 
iiglit,  they  were  athirst  and  cried  out,  as  the  children 
of  Israel  in  the  desert  cried  out  to  Moses :  Give 
us  water,  that  we  may  drink.  But  Peter,  as  the  Jews 
before  him,  insisted  the  barriers  shall  stand;  none  shall 
be  admitted  except  he  have  the  seal  of  the  covenant  in 
his  flesh.  Paul  with  one  bold  sweep  of  the  pen  opened 
the  gates  for  the  conquest  and  conversion  of  the  world. 
Had  the  Jews  of  that  time  been  able  to  read  the  in- 
scription on  the  wall,  had  they  looked  at  the  hand  on 
the  dial,  they  might  have  reclaimed  the  world  with  the 
ethics,  their  own  ethics,  lived  and  taug^lit  by  Jesus  of 
Nazareth;  they  might  have  gone  forth  and  brought  to 
tlie  thirsty  the  water,  to  the  hungry  the  bread  of  life. 
But  they  would  not,  as  to-day  they  will  not.  The  times 
were  ripe;  Judaism  neglected  the  opportunity.  Paul 
embraced  it.  He  preached  in  words  comprehensible  to 
the  pagan  world  the  doctrine  which  he  had  discovered 
in  liis  own  God-touched  heart.  Yea;  there  is  much  at 
which  we  take  exception  in  his  system.  We  do  not  grant 
that  Judaism  is  law;  the  prophetic  system  is  not  la.v, 
legalism  is  a  compromise.  The  Judaism  of  the  proph- 
ets is  not  law.  This  no  one  has  recognized  so  deeply  as 
one  whose  whole  life  work  was  to  show  this  error  in 
Paul's  conception  of  Judaism.'  Consult  Dr.  Samuel 
Hirsch's  exposition  of  our  religion  if  you  would  learn 
that,  while  antagonistic  to  Paulinian  dogmatism  and 
mysticism,  it  is  not  nomism. 

Judaism  itself  has  broken  witli  legalism ;  but  it  does 
not  commit  with  Paul  the  mistake  to  underrate  ethical 
action.  Faith,  certainly  men  must  have;  without  faith 
the  world  must  come  to  an  end.       Ye  who  love  your 

18 


children  and  work  for  humanity,  mind,  Faith  is  the 
steam  that  turns  the  wheels  of  humanity.  But  this 
faith  is  not  the  mystic  something  which,  Paul  holds, 
leads  to  salvation.  Is  character  nothing?  Paul's  exag- 
geration of  faith  is  a  reaction  upon  the  legalism  of  tlie 
synagogue.  AVhy  is  it  that  so  many  brought  up  among 
our  orthodox  will  have  nothing  of  Judaism  after  they 
escape  from  their  tutors?  ^Yhy  is  it  that  ethical  culture 
finds  nowhere  so  eager  recruits  as  from  among  the  ranks 
of  the  orthodox  Jews? 

Mendelssohn's  fate  illustrates  the  reason.  His  own 
children  went  forth  from  Judaism  and  separated  from 
it.  The  Merrdeissohns  are  no  longer  Jews,  they  are 
officially  Christians;  it  was  the  legalism  of  Mendels- 
sohn that  superinduced  their  apostasy.  Paul  from  be- 
ing a  Pharisee  ^Hassid  had  to  go  to  the  other  extreme. 
He  accentuated  faith  and  despised  work.  But  the 
world  is  once  more  coming  around  to  the  other  pole. 
Paulinian  Christianity  is  gradually  developing  into  the 
Christianity  of  Jesus.  Christianity  of  this  latter  order 
and  our  religion  are  twin  brothers.  Character  is  the 
sacramental  word  of  our  religion.  This  Paul  did  not 
understand ;  this  Jesus  understood ;  this  we  understaml. 
Paul's  great  deed  was  to  carry  Jewish  thought,  even  in 
his  form,  into  the  Avorld.  He  left  behind  the  narrow 
confines  of  Judaism  to  win  the  globe.  His  fate  and  the 
experience  of  his  movements  is  full  of  instruction.  Did 
the  freedom  which  Paul  craved  ever  come  ?  It  did  not. 
The  slavery  of  the  law  was  exchanged  for  the  shackles 
of  creed  and  dogma;  the  free  thought  and  the  free  life 
which  he  coveted  did  not  ensue.  And  so  it  will  be  in 
these  latter  days.  Separate  from  Judaism !  Freedom 
will  soon  yield  to  a  new  slavery.     Liberalism  is  safest 

19 


when  protected  by  the  historical  associations  with  Juda- 
ism. As  yet  the  Christian  church  is  too  potent  for  us 
to  loosen  what  historical  connection  we  have.  It  is  a 
law  that  smaller  bodies  are  attracted  by  the  larger. 
Around  the  sun  spin  a  thousand  asteroids ;  they  are 
largely  of  the  sun ;  but  the  sun  draws  them  back  and 
feeds  upon  his  own  offspring.  And  so  it  is  with  unhis- 
torical  liberal  movements;  instead  of  leading  to  larger 
liberty,  they  event  in  greater  slavery.  Best  protected 
is  liberal  thought,  the  religion  of  character,  in  its  his- 
torical frame ;  we  can  Avork  from  this  fulcnmi  to  lift  the 
world.  This  is  our  conviction.  There  is  no  necessity 
to  leave  Judaism  to  win  the  world.  Open  your  gates, 
but  let  it  be  your  gates,  for  the  righteous  to  enter  there- 
into. 

That  much  we  may  learn  from  the  history  of  Paul's 
church.  Tlie  apostle  was  a  man  of  little  prepossessing 
appearance  :  a  man  racked  by  disease ;  a  man  whose  eyes 
were  weak;  a  man  who  had  to  win  his  livelihood  in  the 
sweat  of  his  brow ;  a  man  of  whom  no  one  would  have 
dreamt  that  under  the  missha])en  body  burned  a  fire- 
consumed  soul.  In  such  ungainly  frame  God's  spirit 
loves  to  dwell  occasionally.  This  tent-maker,  blear-eyed, 
disease-racked,  lifted  the  Roman  world  out  of  its  hinges. 
The  world  has  learned  to  distil  the  waters  of  its  faith,  to 
filter  tliem  once  more.  And  what  is  the  purified  stream? 
As  the  religion  of  the  dogmatist  is  separated,  there  will 
be  found  the  religion  of  Jesus^  which  is  our  religion: 
Judaism    universal. 


THE  INALIENABLE  DUTIES  OF  MAN. 

I. 


No  phrase  has  carried  during  the  last  hundred  years 
or  more,  so  great  an  emphasis  as  has  "The  rights  of 
man.'^  Without  fear  of  laying  one's  self  open  to  the 
charge  of  exaggeration,  one  may  say  that  the  political 
and  the  social  thought  of  this  century  has  taken  its 
keynote  from  this  expression.  It  has  been  enlarged 
into  many  a  document;  it  has  formed  the  theme  of 
many  a  stirring  appeal.  It  has  been  preached  from 
the  housetops;  it  has  been  repeated  in  the  school- 
rooms ;  it  has  been  thundered  forth  from  the  hustings ; 
it  has  served  as  the  weapon  of  the  demagogue  and  the 
palladium  of  the  true  patriot.  In  times  of  great  popu- 
lar uneasiness  it  has  been  thrown  as  oil  on  troubled 
waters.  In  days  of  great  popular  indignation  it  has 
often  fanned  the  flame  of  popular  fury.  It  has  gained 
a  hearin.of  in  counting-houses.  It  has  echoed  in  the 
closet  of  the  student.  It  floats  out  upon  the  breeze 
from  the  dome  of  the  nation's  capitol.  It  is  the  diapa- 
son of  almost  every  state  paper.  It  is  the  Leitmotif,  so 
to  speak,  of  many  a  decision  rendered  by  the  highest 
tribunals  of  this  land.  It  is  the  convenient  plea  for 
lawyers  whose  clients  would  escape  their  obligations. 

1 


"Tlie  rights  of  mau'^ — for  one  hundred  3'Gars  human- 
ity has  feasted  on  this  combination  of  high-toned  word=. 
The  fruit  of  the  creed  it  crystalizes  is  apparent  in  our 
day.  The  signs  are  multii)lying  tluit  mankind  is  at  hisfc 
awakening  to  the  suspicion  that  the  so-phrased  creed  is, 
unless  su])plemented  by  an  essential  qualification,  alto- 
gether insufficient  to  pillar  a  humanity  true  to  its  own 
genius,  and  held  together  by  the  more  potent  clasps  of 
love,  devotion  and  free  service. 

The  few  chosen  ones  before  w^hom  life  has  spread  a 
rich  banquet — whom  the  waves  of  fortune  have  always 
carried  on  their  crest, — who  have  been  fairly  successful 
and  found  this  world  as  now  constituted,  a  most  com- 
fortable place  to  live  in — ]>erhaps  do  not  understand 
even  when  they  know  of  its  existence  and  insistence 
the  depth  of  unrest  and  the  profundity  of  despair  that 
now  is  upon  millions  of  our  fellow-men  to  whom  life  is 
largely  a  disappointment,  and  to  whom  society  and  the 
social  order  offer  only  chary  opportunities  to  live 
worthy  and  noble  lives.  'No  truth  is  bodied  forth  by 
the  comfortable  and  common  assurance  repeated  in 
season  and  out  of  season  to-da}^  that  only  those 
whose  hearts  rankle  with  the  poison  of  jealousy 
and  envy,  the  thriftless  and  the  shiftless,  the 
unworthy  and  the  abnormal,  are  crying  out  for 
a  re-constitution  of  the  social  order.  This  gen- 
eralization may  lull  to  thoughtless  sleep  him  whom  the 
Germans  would  label  a  Philistine,  i.  e.  a  man  whose 
vision  is  hemmed  in  by  the  narrowest  valley  of  self- 
interest;  a  man  whose  ears  are  dull  to  every  sound  save 
the  clink  of  the  ducats  which  he  reaps,  rightfully  or 
wrongfully,  in  the  harvest  time  of  commercial  enter- 
prise. 

The  best  of  men,  the  purest  of  minds,  the  deepest  of 

2 


thinkers^  standing  on  the  high  watch  peak  of  the  age, 
have  foreseen  the  portents  of  the  day  described  by  our 
prophet — the  day  of  darkness,  the  day  of  distress,  the 
day  of  disaster,  and  they  would  now  raise  the  ensign 
on  the  hill  and  lift  np  their  voice  in  a  warning  outcry, 
trumpeting  forth  to  a  generation  verging  on  the  deaf- 
ness and  blindness  of  selfishness,  a  solemn  Beware ! 
iSTothing  is  more  dangerous  than  such  assurance  cher- 
ished by  the  pets  of  success  that  the  world  is  right,  and 
societv  is  rio^hteously  constituted. 

Can  it  be  denied,  that  the  mere  doctrine  of  the  rights 
of  man  has  played  into  the  hands  of  the  selfish?  While 
it  has  been  the  lever  to  lift  up  a  few,  it  has  also,  con- 
trary to  the  hope  and  confidence  of  its  first  coiners, 
proven  a  weight  to  drag  down  the  millions. 

The  bald  theory  of  rights  has  prospered  the  capital- 
ists and  none  other.  It  has  sponsored  a  new  kind  of 
selfishness  of  which  the  former  ages  knew  nothing.  I 
am  not  talking  at  random.  Those  among  you^I  trust 
there  are  many — who  have  devoted  time  and  thought  to 
the  study  of  the  literature  bearing  on  politico-economic 
and  sociolooical  problems,  well  know  that  my  statement 
can  easily  be  verified,  and  that^  too,  by  the  testimony  of 
facts  as  solid  as  the  granite  pillars  of  Hercules  which 
stand  guard  o'er  the  narrow  passage  way  through  which 
the  Mediterranean  runs  to  wed  the  boisterous  Atlantic. 
Facts  as  sound  as  granite  prove  the  contention  that 
under  the  bald  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man,  capital 
hcTs  prospered,  at  the  expense  of  the  humanities.  ]t. 
was  this  one-sided  doctrine  which  has  produced  what  is 
called  capitalism. 

I  should  not,  were  this  not  a  Jewish  temple,  pause  to 
reiterate  a  pledge  which  often  I  have  worded  here  and 
elsewhere,  that  I  am  not  of  the  opinion  that  private 
7  3 


property  is  ethically  and  fundamentally  wrong. 
Against  the  capitalist  I  have  nothing  to  urge;  but 
against  capitalism,  against  a  capitalistic  order  of  so- 
ciety, my  religion,  the  religion  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah, 
the  religion  of  the  best  among  all  men — has  everything 
to  urge. 

Upon  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man  is  founded 
that  system  of  social  organization  the  essential  element 
of  which  is  individualism.  The  men  of  the  eighteentJi 
century  who  gave  us  this  doctrine  had  no  insight  into 
the  true  character  of  humanity.  They  labored  under 
a  grievous  error.  They  raised  each  individual  man  as 
individual  to  the  dignity  of  an  exponential  function  of 
humanity,  and  operated  with  this,  their  pet  formula,  as 
though  the  thousand  and  one,  the  millions  and  billions 
of  human  beings  tenanting  simultaneously  the  globe, 
were  merely  held  together  by  interest,  neglecting  alto- 
gether the  factor  of  the  organical  union  between  man 
and  man,  insisting  that  essentially,  an  individual  man 
represented  the  fullest  contents  of  human  growth. 

Or,  to  state  their  proposition  in  other  words,  they 
taught  that  individuals  make  society.  This  is,  the  fatal 
mistake  of  their  philosophy,  this  the  reason  for  the  ulti- 
mate failure  of  their  ethics.  The  individual,  being  the 
free  architect  of  society,  gives  to  or  withholds  from  so- 
ciety his  own  creature,  as  much  or  as  little  as  he 
pleases.  His  freedom  is  his  own  and  is  final.  No  other 
person  may  interfere  with  him  and  no  consideration 
can  influence  him  save  self-interest.  He  fixes  the 
measure  of  the  contribution  due  by  him,'  the  individual, 
to  society.  In  accordance  with  this  view,  Adam  Smith 
and  his  followers,  the  English  school  of  political 
economists,  the  English  school  of  jurists,  have  always 
insisted  that  the  scope  of  i^o^'-^  action  was  limited  while 

4 


the  individual  virtually  had  no  barriers.  Under  the 
stipulations  of  a  social  contract,  individuals  have  con- 
ceded* certain  privileges  to  society.  These  are  fixed  and 
limited.-  Beyond  them  any  social  action  is  an  unjust 
infringement  upon  the  rights  of  the  individual.  Our 
own  political  system  is  built  on  these  foundations.  The 
limitations  are  drawn  by  the  constitution  and  it  is  prac- 
tically unalterable.  The  adjustment  of  social  burdens 
as  found  in  the  instrument  must  stand  inflexibly. 

Two  cases  recently  decided  are  in  point.  In  both 
this  view  was  the  leading  thought  of  our  highest  courts 
— in  this  state  as  well  as  in  the  supreme  court  of  our 
nation. 

In  this  state,  the  factory  inspection  act,  limiting  the 
hours  of  work  for  women,  was  declared  unconstitu- 
tional. From  the  very  first  day  of  the  enactment  of  that 
law.  the  opinion  prevailed  that  our  supreme  court  would 
decide  this  legislative  enactment,  upon  proper  proceed- 
ings, to  be  in  violation  of  the  fundamental  constitu- 
tional limitations  as  laid  down  in  the  organic  law  of 
the  land  and  the  state.  Both  our  state  and  national 
constitution  rest  upon  the  doctrine  that  certain  rights 
are  inalienably  ^'the  rights  of  man."  Freedom  of  con- 
tract is  the  fundamental  pillar  of  humanity  as  under- 
stood by  the  individualistic  philosophy  which  took  shape 
in  government  as  devised  by  the  constitution.  The  fac- 
tory act  presumed  that  for  higher  purposes  of  humanity, 
for  higher  ends,  society  through  its  instrument  and 
as-ent,  the  state,  has  the  right  to  regulate  and  limit 
this  very  freedom  of  contract. 

In  whose  interest  were  the  proceedings  to  declare  the 
act  unconstitutional  instituted?  According  to  the 
arguments  advanced  in  the  pleadings,  it  would  seem  n;- 
though  the  legislature  had  done  a  grievous  injustice  to 

5 


these  women  by  curtailing  their  right  to  cove- 
nant as  they  chose.  If  1  had  been  in  the  case 
as  a  professional  legal  adviser,  I  suppose  1 
should  have  adopted  the  same  line  of  'objec- 
tions as  was  laid  down  by  the  master  attorneys  who 
managed  to  riddle  the  statute.  I.  too,  should  liave 
asked  the  supreme  court  to  consider  that  these  women 
should  not  be  held  in  tutelage  ;  that  they  ought  not  to 
be  deprived  of  their  privilege  to  order  their  life  as  they 
might  elect.  I  should  have  sung  the  good  old  song 
about  the  evils  of  parentalism  and  the  rights  of  man. 
I  should  have  asked  the  court  to  remember  that  the 
women  wdio  were  to  be  interfered  wath  were  of  age. 
They  certainly  ought  not  to  be  treated  like  children  who 
need  a  guardian.  If  they  wish  to  work  ten  hours, 
whose  concern  is  it  but  theirs?  But  let  us  be  honest. 
Was  this  suit  brought  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the 
women  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  inalienable  right?  T 
know  not  who  had  charge  of  the  case.  I  know  not  who 
was  in  the  manufacturers'  society  that  brought  the  suit. 
But  it  was  certainly  not  instituted  to  safeguard  the  in- 
dependence of  the  women.  This  was  the  pretense  and 
the  pretext.  It  was  induced  l)y  the  necessities  of  busi- 
ness. We  could  not,  if  the  law  was  allowed  to  stand, 
compete  with  the  New  York  manufacturers.  We  were 
at  a  great  disadvantage  in  competition.  The  plea  for 
freedom  played,  in  this  case,  into  the  hands  of  what  I 
call  capitalism. 

As  in  this,  so  in  a  thousand  similar  cases  throughout 
the  century  elapsed,  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man 
has  generally  been  the  helper,  not  of  the  masses,  but  of 
the  classes ;  not  of  the  people,  but  of  the  plutocrats,  or 
rather  the  plutocratic  order  of  society. 

The  other  case  is  still  more  recent.     The  constitution 

6 


has  limited  the  taxing  powers  of  congress.  It  stipu- 
lates certain  exemptions.  Those  exemptions  must  stand, 
forjhe  constitution  is  an  instrument  specifying,  not  the 
duties  but  the  formal  reservations  of  rights  that  the 
individuals  while  conceding  certain  functions  to  society 
and  its  agents,  government,  have  excepted  from  the 
effect  of  this  concession. 

Congress  placed  a  tax  upon  incomes.  This  tax,  es- 
pecially if  it  be  graded  and  progressive — and  this,  by 
the  way,  our  constitution  again  prohibits,  .for  taxation 
must  be  equal,  not  proportional, — is  theoretically  the 
most  equitable  of  any.  In  America,  alas,  theory  and 
practice  stand  at  opposite  poles ;  but  in  Germany  the 
income  tax  is  not  a  dead  letter,  nor  does  it  trap  the 
nation  into  perjury.  Under  the  German  system  of 
self-assessments,  not  under  oath,  but  upon  honor — there 
is  scarce  one  single  default  during  the  year — millionaire 
and  pauner  both  inform  the  government  of  their  own 
free  will,  of  the  amount  of  their  earnings,  and  assume 
the  burdens  of  the  social  obligation  in  due  and  progres- 
sive proportion.  This  country  offers  premiums  to  per- 
jurers, for  whoever  among  us  is  shrewd  enough  to  cover 
wrong  under  the  semblance  of  right,  who  understands 
where  and  how  to  "see'^  tlie  assessor,  finds  a  community 
readv  to  worship  him  for  his  sagacity;  in  Germany, 
public  opinion  would  point  the  finger  of  contempt  at 
the  man  who  would  under  one  pretext  or  another  shirk 
his  duty  to  the  state. 

This  income  tax  was  proposed  by  congress,  acting 
under  the  theory  of  specified  rights  and  limited  func- 
tions of  o-overnment.  Suit  is  brought  and  our  highest 
court  decides  in  favor  of  whom?  In  favor  of  the  richest 
men  that  we  have  in  America — in  favor  of  the  owners  of 
real  estate  and  its  proceeds,  and  the  tax  as  it  w^as  left  by 

7 


the  first  decision  of  the  court,  since  revoked,  was  muti- 
lated into  a  tax,  not  on  capital,  but  on  industry — on 
intelligence. 

But,  friends,  do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  do  not 
wish  to  create  the  impression  that  I  undervalue  the 
great  revolution  wrought  under  the  magic  of  this  phrase 
"the  inalienable  rights  of  man/'  No  student  of  history 
but  will  agree  that  few  are  the  days  so  golden  in  their 
radiant  light  for  humanity  as  are  the  hours  when  from 
inspired  lips  dropped  the  words  "Equal  and  inalienable 
rights  of  man."  For  what  would  be  man  if  he  had  no 
rights?  A  slave  he  might  he.  AA^at  boot  would  there  be 
to  owTi  the  torch  of  intelligence,  yet  not  to  have  the 
right  to  allow  its  light  to  illumine  a  path  self-chosen? 
A  slave  is  not  a  man,  even  if  he  have,  like  Epictctus 
of  old,  a,  mind  as  keen  as  that  which  comes  to  genius 
alone,  even  if  there  be  within  him,  like  that  of  the  mis- 
shapen Eoman  slave,  a  soul  answering  whatever  music 
of  the  heavens  fills  the  earth,  even  if  his  be  a  purpose 
as  strong  as  that  of  him  who  struck  the  rock  and  forced 
it  to  give  water,  or  stamped  the  desert  and  compelled  it 
to  become  a  paradise.  What  boot  to  him  intelligence  or 
love  if  another  man's  will  decides  what  he  shall  do,  if 
another  man's  word  commands  whether  he  shall  sing 
or  sigh,  shout  or  sliriek,  shrink  or  shunt — what  to  him 
is  freedom  of  mind,  is  intimacy  with  stars  and  sun, 
with  flowers  and  ferns,  with  rocks  and  rivers,  with 
blades  and  blossoms  if  another  man  can  order  him  about 
now  to  this,  anon  to  another  task,  now  to  the  book  open- 
ed, now  to  the  scroll  chisped?  "WHiat  boot  it  to  him  if 
in  his  soul  there  tin<7le  and  ring  the  call  ''Thou  shalt, 
thou  oug-htst" — if  another  man  bids  him  do  or  not  do. 
Without  riirhts,  and  riirhts  to  your  own  life,  rights  lo 
your  own  property,  rights  to  your  o^^ti  name,  rights  to 

8 


yonr  own  reputation,  rights  to  your  own  self-decision 
how  to  shape  life  and  Avhat  career  to  follow;  human  life 
would  be  not  little  less  than  God's,  but  much  less  than 
the  beast's. 

This  cannot  be  denied,  and  I  can  well  understand, 
as  everyone  of  us  must,  that  the  formula  "the  riglits 
of  man'^  was  a  very  magic  to  hypnotize  the  age  of  its 
birth.  By  its  wine  human  society,  during  the  last 
hundred  years,  has  been  heated  to  intoxication.  Yet 
the  fumes  of  this  inebriation  are  about  passing  away; 
to-day  the  best  men  understand,  the  deepest  minds  com- 
prehend, the  tenderest  hearts  feel  it,  that  something 
more  is  needed  than  the  doctrine  so  bewitching,  which 
carried  the  fathers  to  advance  along  the  rugged  path  .)£ 
progress — something  still  stronger  than  the,  by  our 
predecessors  deemed  final,  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man. 

Progress  is  ahvays  composed  of  three  movements.  Tn 
Hegelian  jargon,  thesis,  antithesis  and  synthesis  mask 
the  successive  phases.  We  hold  by  virtue  of  our  suc- 
cessorship  to  others  certain  things  to  be  true.  By  virtue 
of  our  own  doubt,  however,  we  are  impelled  to  advance 
beyond  the  line  marked  by  inherited  and  transmitted 
truth.  To  accomplish  this,  we  are  led  to  deny  the  pro- 
positions of  the  fathers.  The  proofs  suggest  themiselves 
readily,  that  this  is  the  method  employed  by  the  evolv- 
ing: mind  of  humanity.  To  dwell  on  one  example  for 
all,  let  us  watch  the  course  of  religious  progress.  Belief 
breeds  denial.  When  the  new  religion  is  ripening  to  the 
new  harvest,  from  rostrum,  if  not  from  pulpit  is  pro- 
claimed the  new  knowledge  that  the  old  gods  are  not. 
Atl:e'sm,  rank  denial  of  the  old  tenets,  is  the  first 
movement  in  the  progressive  unfolding  of  religious 
thought. 


In  ])olitics,  the  pcndiihini  swings  from  despotism  and 
absolute  monarcliy  to  moh-nile  and  the  terror.  The 
French  revolution  is  tlie  denial  of  the  political 
dogma  of  the  Boinhons;  Rousseau  and  the 
French  encyclopedists  had  theoretically  spelled  their 
great  "No"  in  answer  to  the  French  king's  positive 
declaration  "L'etat  cest  moir  It  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary in  order  that  humanity  might  progress,  that  as 
emphatically  should  be  spoken  the  protest,  even  by  the 
mouth  of  the  guillotine,  "  The  state  is  not  thou,  but  we, 
the  people,  are  the  state;  each  one  is  an  'I,'  and  as  an 
ego,  each  one  has  the  right  to  utter  his  pronunciamento, 
'the  world  is  1/  " 

This  is  political  atheism,  so  to  speak,  certainly  po- 
litical atomi?m,  as  the  insistence  that  God  is  not,  is 
religious  atheism. 

But,  if  humanity  abides  by  this  negative,  the  electric 
circuit  producing  the  healthful  current  can  never  be 
closed.  Every  electric  circuit  has  a  negative  and  a 
po'5iti^T  pole.  In  the  grander  electricity  of  evolving 
life,  negation  is  one  pole,  but  it  alone  cannot  engender 
the  polar  force  of  circling  eternity,  and  transmit  it  to 
evolving  humanity  through  progressive  time. 

Naturally  humanity  requires  hundreds  of  years  where 
the  individual  is  chained  to  one  solar  revolution.  "A 
thousand  years,"  says  the  psalmist,  ''are  in  thy  sight 
as  yesterday  when  it  is  passed. '^  Tliousand  years — mere 
breadth  in  the  time  movement  of  eternity.  One  sweep 
of  the  pendulum  in  the  great  chronometer  of  divinity. 
Eemember,  incomprehensibly  long  are  the  spans  of 
time  elapsed  since  the  sun  has  flamed  forth  yon  beacon 
light  above,  weaving  life  and  love  into  our  very  earth. 
Its  fire  was  kindled  millions  and  millions  of  years  ago ; 
and  even  this  lamp  is  a  novelty  among  the  torches  burn- 

10 


ing  in  yon  heavenly  regions  nnfathomable  and  un- 
searchable above,  around,  beneath  us.'  Our  sun  is  a 
mere  babe  compared  to  the  other  suns  which  hold  by 
the  nijagnet  of  attraction  and  the  hatred  of  repulsion, 
larger,  grander,  older,  sidereal  families  studding  with 
their  diamond  isles  the  bottomless  ocean  of  firmamen- 
tal  life  in  its  movements  heaving  and  falling,  keeping 
time  to  cosmic  creations^  cradle  songs. 

Xow,  this  being  the  case^  how  laughable  is  the  arro- 
gance to  presume  that  we,  whose  years  are  three  score 
and  ten.  whose  thoughtful  life  is  perhaps  but  two  score 
years — should  understand  the  universe's  plan  and 
method,  and  distinguish  between  the  real  and  the 
seeming ! 

Atheism,  the  first  intoxication  of  impulse  toward 
progress,  the  biting  pinch  of  hunger  for  broader  life, 
the  outburst  of  passion  for  greater  liberty,  today  has 
learned  to  exchange  its  arrogance  for  humbler  gannents. 
Xo  one  who  thinks  may  be  an  atheist.  Agnosticism  is 
the  virtual  acknowledgment  that  atheism  is  dogmatic. 
This  successor  to  atheism  leaves  the  question  open — 
perhaps  there  is — perhaps  there  is  not  that  which  we 
may  call  God  and  divine.  And  even  agnosticism  is  not 
the  creed  of  the  age.  Thousand  voices,  and  not  from 
the  swamps  of  thought,  but  from  the  Alps  of  reflection 
— thousand  tongues,  not  from  the  ignorant,  but  from 
the  wise — not  from  the  blind,  but  from  the  seers,  havr^ 
intoned  asrain  the  jubilant  affirmation :  "God  is.'' 
But  this  God  is  not  the  God  that  was  before  atheism 
protested,  before  agnosticism  expected  and  waited — a 
God  more  sublime  than  he  to  whom  altars  were  built 
and  sacrifices  were  brought  and  prayers  were  sung, 
hymns  were  chanted — a  God  for  whom  though  the  uni- 

11 


verse  is  too  small  to  contain  him,  the  human  heart  is  a 
sanctiiai\y,  encompassing  and  all-inclusive. 

This  development  of  religious  thought  may  be 
studied  in  striking  outlines  in  the  history  of  man's  atti- 
tude toward  religion  during  this  very  century.  The 
rights  of  man  were  first  held  to  be  incompatible  witli 
the  claims  of  the  church.  Priest  and  altar  were  sus- 
pected of  a  picked  intrigue  to  forge  chains  wherewith 
to  fasten  man  and  mind  to  the  block.  The  God 
preached  by  the  church  was,  therefore,  vociferously  de- 
nied by  the  prophets  of  the  rights  of  man.  The  sec- 
ond solDcr  thought,  however,  brought  about  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  positions  maintained  by  either  party  to  the 
contest.  If  the  church  may  be  said  to  represent — to 
employ  Hegel's  phraseolog}' — the  thesis  and  the  profes- 
sional free-thinkers,  the  antithesis,  the  better  view  in- 
fluencing both  the  church  and  its  old-time  antagonist 
has  culminated  in  a  new  synthesis. 

The  same  process  is  at  work  in  the  domain  of  political 
and  sociological  matters.  The  rights  of  man  were  first 
urged  as  protests  against  the  rights  of  kings  and  ruler?. 
Their  emphasis  marked  the  appeal  for  liberty  of  the 
masses  over  against  the  privileges  of  chosen  classes. 
Through  this  formula  ran  and  rang  the  outcry  of  hu- 
manity for  a  larger  life.  But  it  alone  is  mere  atheism 
in  the  field  of  politics.  It  undermines  the  essential  life 
of  society  by  putting  the  individual  first  and  society  last, 
reducing  the  latter  to  a  sum  in  arithmetic,  an  equation 
in  statics,  in  stead  of  regarding  and  treating  it  as  a 
theorem  and  function  in  dynamics. 

Society  is  more  than  you  and  I,  and  a  third  one 
added  together.  It  is  more  than  the  millions  and  mil- 
lions that  live  simultaneously  in  geographical  juxta- 
position on  this  globe.     A  nation  is  more  than  the  sum 

12 


of  the  individuals  that  compose  it.  Humanity  is  more 
than  so  many  milliards  of  individuals  and  detached 
souls.  The  individual  is  by  society — society  is  not  by 
the  individual.  Society  is  the  mother — the  individual 
is  the  child;  the  reverse  proposition  is  untrue.  This 
positive  conviction  of  the  dynamic  constitution  of  so- 
ciety and  the  consequent  new  appreciation  of  the  scope 
of  individual  action  in  and  under  it  had  to  be  acquired. 
The  world  is  learning  it  now.  One  hundred  years 
have  gone  by  since  the  emphasis  was  laid  on  the  indi- 
vidual, and  we  are  again  in  the  schoolroom  spelling  out 
a  new  primary  lesson,  this  new  synthesis ;  the  fruitage, 
the  complement  of  the  antithesis  of  the  inalienable 
rights  of  man  which  in  its  day  was  the  protest,  the 
atheism,  in  reaction  and  revolt  against  the  dogmatism 
and  despotism  of  the  church  and  state. 

What  is  inalienable?  It  is  that  without  which  we 
cannot  think  that  man  can  continue  to  be  man.  It  is 
that  which,  if  denied,  robs  humanity  of  its  vitality. 
What  makes  us  men?  Is  it  the  body  which  we  have.'* 
Scarcely.  Body  like  our  has  also  the  animal.  It  may 
be  different  in  shape  from  ours.  Our  nearest  of  kin  in 
the  family  of  brutal  life  has  four  hands.  He  may 
only  for  a  minute  walk  erect.  He  can  climb ;  but  even 
he  foreshadowing  the  more  perfect  animal  life  as  incor- 
porate in  us,  is  certainly  not  man,  and  we  are  not  he. 
Physiologically  considered,  indeed,  we  are  but  animals. 
Our  gastric  system  is  a  repetition  of  what  we  find  even 
in  the  lowest  kind  of  mammals.  Our  respiratory 
oigans  are  under  the  same  law  as  regulates  the  breath- 
ing apparatus  of  lion  or  tiger,  of  dog  or  of  cat.  Our 
optic  nerves,  auditory  nerves — the  nerves  that  transmit 
the  sensation  of  touch,  smell,  all  these  gateways  to 
knowledge  are  physiolop^ically  operating  in  our  bodily 

13 


laboratory  as  they  do  in  that  of  fox  or  wolf,  or  elephant 
or  what  not. 

Physiologically  we  are  animals.  Is  this  all  we  are'' 
With  a  mere  body,  we  are  not  men.  The  animal  dies — 
we  die.  Our  dust  is  like  that  of  animal.  Is  this  all 
there  is  of  man?  No,  man  stands  for  more  and  re- 
quires more.  What  is  that  something  which  is  inalien- 
able k)  man — involved  in  the  notion  of  man,  without 
v^'hich  man  would  not  be? 

First,  man  to  be  man  must  enjoy  freedom.  He  must 
be  his  own  master.  No  one  else  must  lord  it  over  him. 
Freedom  to  be  or  not  to  be,  seemingly,  even  must  be 
his;  freedom  to  determine  his  own  career — the  mean'? 
he  would  employ  to  attain  the  goal.  No  one  may  say 
to  him  "Thou  shalt  be  a  shoemaker;  thou  shalt  be  a 
physician."  Happily  for  most  of  men,  none  may  even 
sav,  "Tl^ou  shalt  be  a  rabbi."  Man  must  and  may  de^ 
cide  what  he  will  be,  and  how  he  will  proceed  to  satisfy 
his  ambition.  Without  this  freedom  of  self-determina- 
tion man  would  not  be  man. 

The  ancient  form  of  social  organization  denied  him 
this  freedom  altogether.  In  Egypt,  birth  decided  one's 
career,  as  in  the  animal  kingdom  birth  fixes  the  status 
and  station.  Kitten  will  be  cat.  Cub  of  lion  will  be 
lion.  Elepliant  will  be  elephant.  Acorn  will  be  oak. 
Seed  will  be  plant.  Upon  this  animal  plan  were  or- 
ganized India,  Egypt,  and  a  remnant  of  this  animal 
compulsion,  a  survival  of  this  order  of  instinctive  or- 
ganization, is  absolute  monarch}^  This  emphasis  of 
Egypt  recurs  a  broken  echo  in  the  philosophy  of  the 
monarchical  principle.  ; 

This  freedom,  without  which  man  would  cease  to  be 
man,  estal)lishcs  tlie  inalienable  right  to  our  life,  to  our 
liberty,  to  the  pursuit  of  our  happiness.     We  cannot  be 

14 


man  if  we  l^e  denied  the  control  over  the  product  of  our 
hibor.  The  fruitage  of  our  exertions  must  be  ours,  or 
else  our  freedom  is  a  shadow,  an  illusion. 

The  convict  labors.  He  is  not  master  over  what  lie 
produces.  This  absence  of  self-determination  and  con- 
trol is  the  characteristic  clement  in  penal  hard  labor. 
This  constitutes  the  degradation  of  penitentiary  pro- 
ductivity. They  are  not  well  up  in  the  science  of  pen- 
ology and  in  the  psychology  of  labor,  who  insist  that 
labor  as  sucli  is  punishment.  Labor  as  such  is  never 
degrading.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  exponent  of  our 
humanity.  "Thou  shalt  till  the  earth''  spells  not  a 
curse;  it  words  a  blessing.  Adam  even  before  the  fall 
worked.  In  the  fall  the  law  of  work  chang-ed  into  a 
curse  because  his  very  conduct  betrayed  his  ^desire  to  eat 
without  working.  That  the  convicts  are  sentenced  to 
work  is  not  essential  to  their  punishment,  but  the  de- 
grading part  of  their  treatment  arises  from  the  fact 
that  their  work  is  under  compulsion,  the  choice  of  the 
kind  of  work  is  denied  them  and  the  proceeds  of  then- 
efforts  withheld  from  them.  Xot  that  the  slave  had  to 
work  made  his  lot  so  depraved,  but  that  his  was  neither 
the  choice  nor  the  fruit  of  his  labor.  This  was  the 
demoralizing  influence  of  the  institution  of  southern 
slavery.  What  we  j^roduce  as  free  men  shall  be  ours. 
As  we  are  its  creators^  so  must  we  be  its  owners.  In- 
alienable, therefore,  is  the  right  to  our  property.  But 
— and  this  is  the  new  aspect  of  the  matter,  till  recent 
days  too  readily  overlooked — as  these  rights  make,  and 
as  their  absence  unmakes  humanity,  so  there  are  duties 
that  make  and  unmake  humanity — duties  without  which 
man  is  not  a  man.  ' 

What  those  duties  be  that  are  inalienable,  we  shall, 
if  you  so  will,  study  together  a  week  from  today.     I^et 

15 


inc  dismiss  you  today  with  another  preliminary  thought. 
Our  age  is  sick  unto  death.  Possibilities  weighty  and 
most  stupendous  will  arise  in  the  very  next  years  to 
come.  Nothing  is  so  fatal  as  the  sense  wJiicIi 
is  very  prevalent  among  those  who  have  been 
favored — and  that  rightly  perhaps — that  things  as 
they  are,  are  right;  that  only  a  few  malcontents  are  at 
work  undermining  the  foundations  of  society.  Were 
these  foundations  of  the  granite  of  justice,  the  few  mal- 
contents could  not  make  an  impression.  Set  rats  to 
work  to  undermine  one  of  the  everlasting  hills — we  may 
in  patience  afford  to  laugh  at  the  impotent  attack  of  the 
insolent  rodents.  If  these  malcontents,  granted  they  be 
malcontents,  succeed,  it  must  be  because,  where  the 
rock  of  justice  should  pillar  society,  they  meet  only  the 
quicksand  o*f  selfishness  and  self-interest. 

This  confidence  is  not  shared  by  the  best  of  men. 
Books  indicate  the  thought  of  an  age.  There  is  not  a 
work  on  ethics,  there  is  not  a  work  on  social  economics 
that  today  leaves  the  press  but  speaks  of  this  problem 
as  the  pivotal  question  of  the  age.  Whether  the  mod- 
ern author  believes  that  things  must  change  or  that 
things  might  perhaps  be  continued  as  they  are — whether 
he  be  capitalistic  or  socialistic,  anarchistic  or  collec- 
tivistic  in  his  sympathies  or  opinions,  matters  not;  he, 
the  thinker,  knows  that  this  is  the  crucial  question  of 
the  age — grave  in  more  than  one  sense  of  the  word: 
grave  for  civilization,  for  it  might  become  its  doom; 
grave  on  account  of  the  possibilities  of  a  nobler  life 
which  it  holds  in  its  womb.  Yea,  this  deluding  confi- 
dence in  the  justice  of  the  established  order  must  abovit 
all  else  be  laid  aside.  The  modern  pulpit  is  charged 
with  an  anti-capitalistic  leaning, — at  least,  the  inde- 
})endent  ])ulpit  is  under  this  suspicion.     There  be  i^ul- 

16 


pits  that  are  not  independent.  Thev  are  denied  their 
inalienable  rights.  They  are  the  little  pieces  of  paper 
that  are  put  to  the  tail  of  the  congregational  autocrat's 
kite.  These  dependent  pulpits  who  do  not  own  their 
ifouls  are,  indeed,  not  those  that  sound  the  message  of 
the  day,  but  where  independence  is  vouchsafed  the  pul- 
pit, or  the  platform,  ethical  culture  or  theistic.  Chris- 
tian or  Jew^  Unitarian  or  Mohammedan,  all  men  of 
thought  have  recognized  this  as  the  main  problem  of 
modern  religious  study  and  solicitude.  Why?  Because 
the  seers  today  understand  that  on  the  philosophy  of 
rights,  inalienable  rights  alone,  humanity  cannot  work 
out  its  divine  destiny. 

Poets  even  speak  of  this  one  question.  Poetry,  dow- 
ered to  soothe  and  gifted  to  dispel  doubt  and  trouble,  to 
dry  tears  and  to  charm  forth  smiles — even  it  evokes 
from  her  lyre  the  stress  of  ominous  warning.  Sociology 
has  become  poetic.  It  has  consecrated  its  poets  today. 
As  philosophy  formerly  was  wedded  to  the  lighter  muse, 
so  today  sociology  is  bound  in  conjugal  union  unto  the 
genius  of  song,  the  messenger  of  bounding  thought, 
catching  the  echo  of  the  ages  and  translating  it  into  the 
speech  of  the  heart. 

In  a  few  years  more,  art  will  be  busy  with  nothing 
but  this  one  question.  Yea,  it  is  so  now.  Eemember 
you  from  your  visits  to  the  World's  Fair  those  lurid 
gloomy  pictures — workmen  by  the  smithy's  fire,  wield- 
ing the  hammers?  Even  strikes^  with  their  misery, 
their  passion,  their  distress,  and  their  despair  have  in- 
spired the  painter's  pencil.  As  slavery  put  the  sharj)- 
cned  chisel  and  protesting  marble  into  the  hand  of 
sculptor,  so  industrial  contention  will  soon  bend  to  its 
thought  and  its  despair,  its  doubts  and  its  hopes,  bronze 
and  iron.     Tomorrow  in  our  museums  will  greet  us — T 

17 


see  her  even  now — woman's  figure  representing  linman- 
ity,  lifting  up  her  hands  in  prayer  for  light,  impelled 
by  a  lasting  love  for  all  her  children.  The  masses  have 
heard  the  call.  As  they  listen  it  is  for  them  burdened 
with  the  rancor  of  seeming  injustice  of  which  they  are 
the  victims.  One  king  they  say  we  dethroned  when 
we  stormed  the  Bastille,  one  king  reft  of  his 
scepter  when  we  thundered  forth  to  England 
across  the  Atlantic :  ^'Thou  shalt  not  rule  over 
us;  the  colonies  shall  be  independent.  They  shall 
be  for  themselves,  not  means  for  thee  to  swell  thy  cof- 
fers." And  yet  tins  monarch  had  his  ideal  thought- 
associations.  King  had  the  glory  of  history  woven  in 
haloed  light  around  his  crown ;  king  stood  for  the  na- 
tion, incarnate  and  personified  in  his  very  being.  To- 
day gold  is  king.  The  scepter  it  wields  has  neither 
heart  nor  love,  has  neither  patriotism  nor  honor.  Gold ! 
To  that  king  we  must  slave,  say  they.  "Is  it  just?" 
ask  they.  "It  cannot  be  changed,"  they  are  told.  "If 
it  cannot  be  changed,  then  life  is  of  all  delusions  and 
deceptions  the  rankest  and  the  bitterest.  Then  let  us 
die  now,  and  as  in  the  Gottcrd?emmerung,  in  the  last 
light  of  the  dying  dusk,  the  despairing  daughter  of  the 
gods  immolates  herself  in  the  ectasy  of  the  sacrifice,  let 
us  immolate  ourselves  in  the  fire  of  battle  rather  than 
starve  in  the  slums  and  sink  in  the  slime  of  our  boasted 
order.  The  burning  palaces  will  at  least  give  us 
warmth  for  a  few  hours,  and  the  stored  up  provisions 
divided  will  at  least  for  one  day  still  the  hunger;  hu- 
manity is  a  mere  sham,  let  us,  blind  Samsons,  snap  the 
pillars  of  its  temple.  What  are  we  more  than  Samsons 
blinded,  let  out  to  give  sport  to  the  thousands  gathered 
in  Dagon's  honor.  Bend  the  pillars.  Fall,  thou  roof! 
Euin  everywhere — death  at  last!" 

18 


Is  there  no  hope?  Is  there  no  other  answer?  Is 
there  no  sacramental  word?  I  have  no  doubt  there  is. 
It  comes  in  the  old  word  of  religion.  It  appears  as  the 
eternal  work  of  "G-O-D/'  as  the  theologians  spell  it. 
The  moral  teacher  spells  it  '^D-U-T-Y.^'  He  who  loves 
his  humanity  will  have  God  and  duty  supplement  our 
beloved  catch-word  "inalienable  rights."  God  and 
duty,  God  and  obligation,  God  and  responsibility — 
compose  the  grander  phrase  and  appeal.  Inalienable 
rights?  'No,  not  alone  are  rights  inalienable — inalien- 
able are  also  duties.  Wliat  these  duties  are,  friends,  let 
us  study  when  next  we  meet. 


19 


THE  INALIENABLE  DUTIEvS  OF  MAN, 

II. 


The  social  question  is  focal  to  all  moral  and  intellec- 
tual efforts  in  this,  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  This  puzzling  and  j^erplexing  problem  has 
arisen  not  in  consequence  of  the  fancy  and  caprice  of  a 
few  malevolent  malcontents;  it  is. the  writing  on  the 
wall  which  may  well  cause  us  to  pause  and  pounder,  as- 
sembled at  the  banquet  as  we  are,  where,  in  profanation 
of  their  right  uses,  we  are  degrading  to  common 
triviality  and  frivolity,  the  sacred  implements  of  the 
temple.  Feasting  at  the  table,  we  are  aroused  from  our 
sense  of  security  by  the  unknown  script  mysterious  on 
the  wall,  which  fain  we  would  read  and  interpret,  but 
which  transcends  for  the  moment  our  gift  of  divination. 

Of  course,  Epimetheus  is  always  wiser  than  Prome- 
theus. Standing  upon  the  high  outlook  of  centuries 
and  turning  our  glance  backward,  we  have  but  little 
difficult}^  to  know  why  such  perplexities  had  to  follow 
in  the  wake  of  our  civilization.  The  fathers,  lacking 
the  pedestal  of  another  century,  did  not  command  the 
sweep  of  vision  to  warn  them  and  to  prophecy  to  them 
that  their  hopes  would  be  realized  only  in  scant  meas- 
ure ;  that  their  confidence  that  with  the  translation  into 
institutions  of  their  political  philosophy  based  on  the 
doctrine  of  rights,  peace  would  prevail  and  content- 
ment would  smile  would  be  doomed  to  sad  disappoint- 
ment. 


They  who  gave  us  our  political  creedj  the  morality  of 
individualism,  the  theory  of  rights,  were  men — thisinust 
be  oA\'ned,  and  I  shall  be  the  last  to  dispute  it — of  higli 
and  strong  idealism.  They  believed  what  they  taught. 
For  them  there  was  no  word  so  sacramental  as  the 
word  "man."  Humanity  spelled  for  them  a  majesty  the 
light  of  which  paled  before  none  other.  At  its  sound 
their  very  soul  thrilled  in  response,  and  by  its  message 
they  were  baptized  into  a  higlier  redemption. 

But  the  man  they  dreamed  about  was  but  an  ideal.  In 
the  dust  he  was  not  real.  Man,  the  existing  man,  carried 
yet  too  much  of  his  native  clay  to  render  possible  the 
realization  of  a  dream  pinioned  and  pivoted  on  this 
ideal  trust  in  man,  and  this  ideal  religion  of  humanity. 

The  freedom  of  man  for  the  fathers  was  a  call  to 
service.  For  their  sons  it  was  an  opportunity  to  enslave 
others,  and  we,  their  grandchildren,  are  bearing  the 
yoke  which  unwittingly  was  prepared  when  the  fathers 
phrased  their  doctrine  of  rights  without  emphasizing  the 
corresponding  duties  upon  which  every  right  is  hinged. 
Our  age  is  still  vocal  with  the  appeal  for  rights.  Many- 
toned  is  the  insistence  on  the  rights  of  the  laboring  man ; 
the  rights  of  womanhood,  the  rights  of  capital,  the  rights 
of  property,  the  rights  of  matrimony,  the  rights  of  the 
church,  the  rights  of  commerce.  Are  ever  wdiispered  the 
suggestions  that  if-  labor  has  rights  it  also  has  duties ; 
that  if  womanhood  has  rights,  womanhood  has  obli- 
gations which  none  other  but  woman  can  discharge; 
that  if  capital  is  shielded  in  rights  it  is  also  weighted 
with  responsibility;  that  if  property  may  shelter  itself 
behind  the  rampart  of  certain  privileges,  it  must  also 
carry  certain  burdens?  I  ask,  is  even  the  suggastion  of 
sucli  a  co-relation  broached  in  this  age  so  insistent  upon 
the  rights  of  this  class  and  the  other?     This  one  sided 

2 


fanaticism  for  rights  is  the  fatal  phase  of  our  present 
civilization. 

Under  the  sway  of  the  individualistic  theor}-  of  rights, 
and  under  the  necessities  of  evolving  industry,  capital- 
ism, as  I  called  it  last  Sunday,  found  its  greatest  oppor- 
tunity. The  men  of  the  French  Eevolution,  to  whom  to 
a  large  degree  we  owe  this  theory  of  rights,  believed,  as 
I  have  before  suggested,  that  after  th©  triumph  of  their 
theory  and  its  application  to  things  social  and  human, 
peace  would  unfold  its  priceless  glories.  They  were 
speedily  disenchanted.  Did  immediately  after  the  storm 
of  the  French  uprising,  which  rocked  their  often-ac- 
claimed freedom's  cradle,  had  subsided,  the  zephyrs  of 
peace  waft  across  earth?  Far  from  it.  Our  century  was 
welcomed  into  life  by  the  boom  of  cannons,  and  I  am 
afraid  it  will  be  sung  to  sleep  in  its  grave  by  the  same 
brazen  music  of  destructive  ordnance.  AMien  nineteen 
hundred  stepped  forth  from  the  mother  ocean  of  eter- 
nity the  globe  was  writhing  in  the  agony  of  war,  and 
and  now  that  it  is  hurrying  on  to  its  burial,  earth  is 
shakinor  imder  the  tread  of  armies  trained  in  fabulous 
numbers  for  the  work  of  murder,  organized  and  digni- 
fied with  the  name  of  patriotism. 

Peace  did  not  event.  Its  failure  to  appear  engendered 
for  the  nations  the  necessity  of  assuming  financial  obli- 
gations created  by  the  complications  of  political  situa- 
tions which  the  generation  that  originally  incurred  them 
could  not  discharge  but  left  to  its  children  and  chil- 
dren's children  to  carry,  and  perhaps  only  ultimately 
to  wipe  out.  Or.  to  be  plainer,  these  wars  of  modern 
times  led  to  national  indebtedness,  and  national  in- 
debtedness tempted  from  its  hiding  place  in  unexplored 
mammoth  caves  the  mephitic  maelstrom  of  financial 
speculation.       Before    this    century,    never  was  aught 

3 


like  this  known.  Napoleonic  genius  and  influence,  a 
curse,  to  a  certiiin  extent,  to  our  liumanity,  and  its  off- 
spring, the  political  and  patriotic  ambitions  of  the  new- 
born nations,  saddled  upon  this  globe  the  incubus  of 
national  debts.  Speculation  Avas  the  mother  of  a  new 
class  in  society,  the  haute-finance — men  who  contributed 
little  to  the  great  creative  work  of  humanity,  but  by 
manipulation  succeeded  in  garnering  great  riches. 

The  growth  of  the  industries  again  led  to  the  same 
end.  The  new  inventions  of  steam  and  electricity,  the 
newly-acquired  control  over  the  forces  of  nature,  ne- 
cessitated the  application  of  the  economies  of  past  gen- 
erations on  such  a  vast  scale  as  to  transcend  the  power 
and  possibilities  of  even  a  single  nation,  and  in  conse- 
quence capitalization  took  a  form  it  never  had  in  former 
(lays.  The  bond  sprang  into  existence — the  share  was 
invented  for  the  railroads  that  had  to  he  built,  the 
canals  that  had  to  be  cut.  The  new  necessities  of 
industry  that  had  to  be  answered  required  an  outlay  of 
money  which  the  largest  individual  financial  firm  could 
not  provide,  and  thus  capital  became  impersonal,  and 
being  impersonal,  lost  its  character  as  a  moral  power. 
This  impersonal  capital  played  into  the  hands  of  the 
haute-finance — men  and  classes  who  set  out  to  pilgrim 
to  their  Bethlehem  by  the  newdy  risen  star  of  freedom 
and  were  so  dazzled  by  its  splendor  as  to  become  blind  to 
its  stellar  companions.  They  neglected  to  remember  the 
conditions  upon  which  rights  are  pedestaled — responsi- 
bility and  obligation. 

A  symptom  of  this  growing  understanding  of  the 
heartless  character  of  impersonal  capitalism  wdiich  has 
eliminated  the  capitalist  and  supplanted  him  by  a  soul- 
less company  or  trust  is  found  in  Anti-Semitism. 
Anti-Semitism     is    the    bigoted    protest    against   the 

4 


haute- finance.  Primarily  and  ultimately,  in  its  ele- 
ments it  partakes  of  the  nature  of  a  socialistic  crusade, 
and  in  its  groping  emotions  and  unclarified  passions 
it  unconsciously  anticipates  or  swells  the  outcry  for  sal- 
vation from  capitalism.  It  is  not  the  Jewish  religion  that 
is  assailed — it  is  not  the  race  even  that  is  the  genuine 
provocation  of  the  outburst — these  and  similar  faint 
pleaders  which  demagogues  bandy  about  are  subterfuges, 
pretexts  and  pretences.  We  Jews  commit  a  fatal  error 
if  we  become  satisfied  that  the  prejudice  which  is  so 
loud  to-day  on  earth  against  the  Semite  is  in  its  roots 
either  woven  of  religious  intolerence,  or  spun  of  radical 
antipathy.  It  is  essentially  allied  to  social  unrest.  The 
Christian  nations  committed  a  fatal  error  in  the  Middle 
Ages  when  they  forced  the  Jew  to  follow  the  dangerous 
part  of  the  financial  go-between.  But  errors  committed 
in  history  recoil  rarely  upon  the  heads  of  their  devisers ; 
they  visit  most  frequently  and  fearfully  their  victims. 
Such  has  been  the  fate  of  the  Jew.  He  had  no  help,  no 
alternative.  Every  honorable  walk  was  barred  against 
him.  There  was  no  room  for  him  in  the  economy  of  the 
feudal  society  of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  was  indeed  a 
stranger  among  strangers.  He  constituted  an  iniperiura 
in  imperio.  He  had  not  even  the  power  to  shape  his 
own  destiny — it  was  shaped  for  him. 

But  whether  there  be  contributory  guilt  on  his  part, 
or  his  innocence  be  brilliantly  established,  in  the  results 
the  case  is  not  altered.  At  the  beginning  of  the  new 
era,  gradually  the  Jew  was  emancipated.  Feudalism  fell. 
The  old  barriers,  wliich  were  restrictive,  but  also  pro- 
tective dykes  and  dams,  had  yielded,  and  the 
flood  swept,  without  let  and  hindrance  across  the 
broad  fields  newly  tilled  and  now  about  to  be 
newly      planted.       Among      the      many      that      were 


loosened  from  tlieir  old  moorings  and  flooded 
away  from  tlie  stagnant  slips  and  berths  of  shut-up 
servitude  into  the  broader  and  fresher  current  of 
unrvStrieted  freedom  was  also  the  Jew.  Still,  even  then, 
on  the  whole,  scarce  another  pursuit  was  opened  to  him 
and  his  talent,  than  the  career  of  the  financial  go-be- 
tween. That  he  made  the  most  of  his  almost  only 
opportunity  may  be  worthy  of  comment,  but  is  not 
open  to  censure.  Furthermore,  if  we  examine  under  the 
micro^eo])c'  his  stewardship  of  the  great  capitals 
entrusted  to  his  control,  and  compare  his  with  the  use 
made  of  similar  opportunity  by  others  that  are  not  Jews;, 
we  shall  find  that  the  Jew  always  has  had  a  by  far 
tenderiT  conscience  than  was  that  of  his  non-Jewish 
competitor. 

But  still  he  has  not  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  sole  . 
representative  of  the  lirmte-fi nance,  and  the  cry  raised 
against  him  may  for  this  reason  be  said  to  be  spnipto- 
matic  of  the  growing  anger  at  the  increasing  power 
of  impersonal  and  therefore  irresponsible  capitalism. 
Those  pulpite  and  writers  are  short-sighted  that  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  will  point  to  our  influence  in 
the  financial  world  as  redounding  to  our  credit.  AVould 
to  God  we  never  had  had  a  Eothschild !  Xevcr  a 
^'promoter"  of  railroads,  had  been  inscribed  upon  our 
roll !  Would  to  God  that  the  European  bourses  had 
never  seen  a  Jew !  The  circumstance  that  the  new 
aristocracy  by  the  grace  of  the  almighty  ducat  is  recruit- 
ed largely  from  the  ranks  of  nominal  Jews  and  Jewish 
"Boersianer,"  is  not  a  blessing  to  Judaism.  Against 
impersonal  capital  and  the  capitalistic  organization  of 
society  this  new  crusade  nominally  purposed  against  the 
Jew  is,  in  its  elements  and  in  its  subconsciious  instincts, 
directed.       As  all  social  movemients  of  whatever  kind 

G 


are  first  tested  by  trying  the  experiment  with  the  Jew. 
so  anti-capitalism  takes  on  naturally  the  griise  of  anti- 
Semitism;  as  in  Russia  the  attempted  nationalization 
of  the  empire  linds  its  first  expression  in  rabid  per- 
secution of  the  non-orthodox  Jewish  elements  of  the 
population. 

I  could  detain  you  this  whole  morning  and  my 
proofs  would  not  be  exhausted  even  then,  by  calling 
your  attention  to  other  movements  in  our  age  that  all 
];ioint  with  an  emphasis  which  only  fools  can  overlook  to 
the  fact  that  our  theory  of  society,  of  individual  rights, 
lias  sutfered  shipwreck.  Every  right  pr-esupposes  a  duty, 
and  instead  of  ringing  the  changes  on  inalienable  rights, 
we  must  turn  and  begin  to  clink  out  the  more  cheerful 
metallic  music  of  the  inalienable  duties  of  man. 

Other  salvation  there  is  none.  All  measures  proposed 
for  the  social  redemption  of  man  are  but  palliatives. 
Single  tax  is  but  a  patent  medicine —  those  that  believe 
in  it  may  indeed  be  honest,  but  an  honest  trial  of  the 
nostrum  will  at  once  reveal  its  inadequacy  to  solve  the 
difficulty  and  to  bring  about  the  era  of  good-will  and 
peace. 

Progressive  income  tax  is  another  plaster — a  porous 
piaster  vaunted  to  be  a  cure-all  for  the  social  lumbagoes 
and  rheumatisms;  but  should  it  be  applied,  even  it 
would  give  merely  a  temporary  relief.  The  symptoms 
are  not  local.  The  disease  is  not  functional —  it  is 
organic,  and  the  ache  here  and  the  ache  there,  a  strike 
here  and  a  riot  there,  a  lockout  in  this  place  and  a 
trust  in  another,  are  but  manifestations  of  the  general 
disorder  and  disorganization  into  which  the  body  social 
under  the  stimulant  of  one-sided  freedom  and  rights  has 
lapsed. 


Tho  euro  will  be  wrought  not  by  these  and  other 
external  lotions  and  salves,  but  by  a  complete  moral 
regeneration.  Yea,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  regenera- 
tion is  true  in  so  far  as  the  crude  man  is  never  the 
perfect  man — crude  society  is  not  the  perfectly  con- 
stituted society.  Our  generation  is  in  need  of  a  new 
birth  to-day  and  a  baptism  into  the  spirit  of  duty,  for 
altogether  too  long  we  have  been  taught  that  God's  sacra- 
ment to  mian  is  rights — inalienable  rights. 

Let  me  point  out  that  the  ethical  culture  movement 
is  spreading  and  growing  every  day  more  and  more. 
Would  you  account  for  this  phenomenon?  It  is  not,  as 
miany  suppose,  its  religious  liberalism  that  has  made 
that  nlo^ement  timely.  It  is  not  because  it^  platform 
is  freer  than  ours  or  its  exponents  more  learned  than  are 
our  teachers.  There  be  thousands  indeed  that  worship 
at  that  shrine,  as  there  are  thousands  that  worship 
at  other  shrines,  who  know  not  the  character  of  the  god 
whom  they  adore.  They  float  down  stream — without 
knowing  whither.  Others  seek  in  this  new  hope  a  new 
diversion.  Tlie  sweet  tongue  of  oratory  that  wings 
forth  poetic  words,  sprinkled  with  the  spice  of  foreign 
birth  and  oriental  atmosphere,  captivates  and  holds 
them.  But  these  and  their  sympathies  do  not  account 
for  the  deeper  legitimacy  of  the  movement. 

May  I  tell  you  what  I  believe  to  be  fundamental  to 
this  cause  ?  It  speaks  a  language  with  which  the  syna- 
gogue always  resounded;  it  emphasizes  a  view  w^hich 
the  doctrine  of  Judaism  was  always  accentuating — a 
note  to  which  we  Jews  will  only  listen  when  it  is  struck 
elsewhere;  for  which  we  arc  deaf  in  our  own  synagogues, 
though  anxious  to  accept  its  invitation  when  elsewhere, 
under  new  names,  under  new  colors  and  new  pretences, 

8 


it  is  extended  us.  This  note  is  the  serious  emphasis  of 
dut}'.  I 

You  doubt  my  explanation?  You  perhaps  question 
the  correctness  of  my  diagnosis?  On  what  philosophy 
is  ethical  culture  grounded?  On  the  philosophy  of 
Kant.  And  was  it  not  Kant  who  confessed  that  two 
contemplations  always  caused  him  to  bow  his  head  in 
reverent  adoration?  Of  the  two  that  bind  his  tongue 
mute,  and  hush  it  in  the  silence  of  utter  awfulness  pro- 
duced by  the  consciousness  of  his  responsibilities,  the 
one  is  the  star-spangled  dome  of  heaven — that  great  cos- 
mic jewelcasket  open  to  the  inspection  of  man  night 
after  night.  Kant  confesses  that  when  he  looked  up 
to  those  diamond  fields  in  heaven^  he  was  ever  thrilled 
anew  with  holy  awe.  The  other  is  the  voice  within,  that 
eternal  "thou  oughtest" — the,  command  of  duty  ovei^ 
rowering  him  with  the  same  reverence.  Ethical  culture 
has  from  Kant  and  Judaism  taken  as  its  fundamental 
key-note — Duty. 

Yea,  this  note  was  not  original  with  Kant.  He  was 
not  the  first  to  write  the  melody  of  life  in  this  key.  The 
prophets  of  old — those  men  of  fiery  tongue,  of  bitter 
complaint,  of  ungainly  address,  of  controversy  unrelent- 
ing— the  men  who  seemingly  could  but  censure  and 
never  prais:^,  chide  but  never  cheer — these  men  had 
summed  up  universe  and  life  in  the  one  word  Duty 
long  before  Kant  in  Koenigsberg  established  his  doc- 
trine of  life  upon  the  same  rock. 

That  thinking  men  today — the  thoughtful  minds, 
turn  a.a>iin  to  tlic  proclamation  of  duty,  is  proof  of  the 
correctness  of  my  statement.  It  is  thi?  that  the  people 
in  the  desert  need.  ^'Give  us  water,"  said  they  to  Moses, 
"or  we  shall  die."  Society  today,  the  thinking  ones, 
the  feeling  ones,  have  tasted  the  water  of  the  wells  of 

9 


Mf^dcni  culture  and  have  found  them  bitter.  The  peo- 
plo  are  impatient  under  disappointment.  They  hunger 
for  tlie  proplietic  word,  the  insight  to  cull  the  wood 
w-hich  cast  into  their  bitter  well  renders  sweet  their 
drink.  This  drug,  the  element  to  be  added,  is  duty. 
We  so  far  have  too  much  and  always  insisted  upon  our 
rights. 

Kiglits  of  labor,  rights  of  woman,  rights  of  capital, 
rights  of  property, — they  are  war  cries.  Duty  of 
woman,  duty  of  labor,'  duty  of  capital,  duty  of  property, 
are  the  angelic  trumpet-sounds  of  peace. 
.  I  defined,  you  w^ill  remember,  last  Sunday,  inalienable 
as  something  without  wdiich  man  could  not  be  man.  I 
have  gone  through  the  gamut  of  rights  and  proved  to 
you  in  my  bungling  way,  that  the  rights. which  are  in- 
alienalile,  are  indeed  of  this  character.  But  which  are 
the  duties  that  are  inalienable? 

Man  does  not  come  into  this  world  complete.  This 
the  theorists  of  rights  have  overlooked.  For  them  every 
human  being — every  human  individual  is  a  complete 
man.  We  say  society  produces  man;  but  society  is  a 
progressive  life,  conditioned  in  its  progress  upon  the 
developmicnt  of  the  individual. 

Do  you  doubt  that  society  is  our  mother?  The  terra 
society  in  this  connection  is  used  in  the  sense  in  which  it 
appears  in  modem  sociological  literature.  Society  the 
one  cnnd  tho  all — t1iat  mysterious,  impalpable  something 
which  is  ever  present  and  active,  w'hich  is  within  u>. 
and  of  which  we  are  part,  and  yet  is  more  than  all  of 
us  together,  added  up  as  an  arithmetical  sum,  more  than 
the  aggregate  of  a  column  of  figures.  Do  you  doubt 
that  "this  grander  something — thi?  society,  is  our 
mother^  our  progenitor? 

10 


It  is  not  true  that  man  appears  in  this  world  free. 
Tliere  is  no  one  that  conies  into  this  world  free — free  in 
the  sense  that  he  is  a. blank — that  with  him  history  be- 
gins anew^  that  he  owes  no  obligation  to  the  past,  and 
therefore  has  no. duty  to  the  past  in  the  living  present 
and  no  responsibility  for  the  future.  If  instead  of 
having  been  born  in  America,  some  of  us  should  have 
been  born  in  Germany,  would  they  have  knocked  at  life's 
gate  hanrh'capped  or  helped,  as  they  were  when  they  came 
into  tliis  new  sublunar  sphere  here?  Certainly  not. 
The  child  of  a  red  Indian  on  our  western  plains  is  by 
the  accident  of  his  birth  different  from  the  child  that 
comes  into  life  in  Chicago,  in  Constantinople,  in  Calais, 
in  Kalamazoo,  or  elsewhere  in  this  world.  We  are  not 
free  when  we  enter  this  world;  we  are  by  birth,  and 
even  prcuatally,  made  into  something — we  are  condi- 
tioned. 

Those  that  argue  from  the  basis  of  man's  freedom  as 
a  birthright,  and  would  apply  it  to  religious  life,  for  in- 
stancCj  make,  in  my  estimation,  a  fatal  mistake.  I  have 
had  philosophers  tell  me  that  they  allow  their  sons  and 
daughters  to  choose  their  own  religion.  And  with  pas- 
sing strange  logic  they  assign  this  as  their  reason  for 
declinirg  to  hi  them  receive  religious  instruction  in 
their  younger  days.  "\ATien  our  children  grow  up,  say 
they,  let  them  decide  to  what,  if  any,  religious  fellow- 
ship they  would  belong.  You  might  as  well  argue  that  it 
is  just  to  let  them  choose  their  language.  You  condi- 
tion them  to  a  language  when  you  make  them  mem- 
bers of  your  family,  yea,  even  arbitrarily  you  put  this 
restriction  upon  them.  Society  asserts  itself  at  once  m 
the  very  first  manifestation  of  our  rational  life.  In 
forcing  the  child  to  the  use  of  a  ready-made  languages 
the  family  interferes  with   its  freedom  of  choice  and 

11 


movement.  Tliis  liolds  good  of  religion.  Keligiously 
considered  we  are,  the  children  of  our  parents  as  clearl}^ 
as  we  are  this  in  language.  But  as  even  the  proper  use 
of  one's  mother  tongue  is  a  matter  of  culture,  so  is  the 
proper  penetration  into  the  genius  of  one's  ancestral 
religion.  If  you  permit  this  function,  to  atrophize,  you 
mutilate  your  children's  souls.  This  time  or  other  will 
revenge  itself,  and  where,  under  culture,  the  sweet  vine 
grapes  might  he  grown,  the  neglected  slope  will  run  to 
thistles  and  thorns.  | 

I  have  yet  to  see  one  of  those  professionally  "liberal"' 
Jews  who  to  be  rid  of  Judaism  deny  their  birth,  who 
does  not  display  all  the  traits  that  are  said  to  make  the 
Jew  distasteful,  and  that  in  a  degree  not  attained  by 
the  most  bigoted  orthodox  among  us.  The  explanation 
is  simple  enough.  A  field  that  should  have  been  culti- 
vated, left  fallow  orTows  onlv  weeds. 

In  Germany  thousand  and  one  Jews  have  sought  re- 
lief from  Judaism  through  the  coward's  backdoor — 
baptism.  They  hoped  that  water  would  wash  off  the 
stain  of  the  hereditary  curse.  Their  expectations  have 
not  been  realized.  The  Jewish  curse  asserts  itself  even 
after  their  conversion.  Had  that. curse  been  turned 
into  a  blessing  by  proper  training,  they  would  be  Jews 
indeed,  but  also  much  more  of  men. 

The  young  men  who  have  been  systematically  left 
in  ignorance  about  religion  and  Judaism  have  not  grown 
in  humanity.  They  have  not  escaped  what,  to  use  their 
phrase,  curse  there  is  in  Judaism.  By  personal  obser- 
vation, I  know  that  those  weaknesses  wdiich  are  creating 
the  prejudice  against  the  Jew,  are  most  pronounced  in 
the  very  persons  who  have  made  it  their  life  study  and 
main  purpose  to  hide  their  Judaism.  Even  where  their 
countenance  does  not  indicate  the  certificate  of  birth, 

12 


their  conduct  and  general  attitude  betray  the  ghetto  an- 
cestry. The  safest  method,  it  strikes  me,  is  that  which 
awakens  in  one  who  is  a  Jew  by  birth  the  sense  of  the 
glory  and  greatness  of  spiritual  Judaism. 

Predicating  of  man  at  birth  a  freedom  which  is  non- 
existent, our  theorists  commit  the  fatal  error  to  let  run 
^Wld  what  must  be  trained.  Our  theory  is  that  man's 
duties  run  back  of  his  birth  and  become  operative  at 
birth.  On  this  basis,  we  rest  our  insistence  that  every 
new  incarnation  of  humanity  is  morally  held  under 
bonds  to  its  forbears  to  continue  the  work  bequeathed 
by  them  to  their  natural  successors  and  heirs. 

The  conception  of  man  as  realizing  himself  ever 
anew  through  history's  onward  movements  implies  the 
continuity  of  civilization.  With  no  man,  be  he  never 
so  great,  does  civilization  begin  anew  or  over  again.  He 
has  always  predecessors  on  whose  shoulders  he  stands. 
He  must  make  of  himself  in  turn  a  stronger  pedestal  for 
those  that  come  after  him. 

The  very  word  culture  which  is  central  to  our  modern 
creed  is  tantamount  to  the  avowal  that  man  in  his 
natural  condition  is  not  complete.  But  the  theory  of 
absolute  freedom  denies  the  necessity  of  culture.  If  we 
accept  it,  we  agree  that  man  is  perfect  at 
birtli,  there  is  no  need  of  further  growth.  Natural 
man,  far  from  being  perfect,  is  imperfect.  He  owns 
the  legacy  of  his  predecessors,  but  this  endowment  come 
to  him  must  grow  through  him  and  be  transmitted  an 
enlarged  estate  to  others  that  will  come  after  him.  He 
is  one  of  many,  and  these  many  do  not  act  as  an  arith- 
metical aggregate;  though  each  one  of  them  is  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  a  unit,  their  totality  represents  a  life  which 
is  richer  in  energy  than  the  sum  of  all  units  added  to- 


gether. 


13 


This  inti'rdi'pciKlL'iiL'c  of  past  and  present,  and  present 
and  future,  of  individual  and  society,  postulates  the  ful- 
lilnieut  of  man's  inalienable  duties,  as  the  cmph'atic 
coniplenient  of  this  natural  claim  to  his  inalienable 
rights.  To  illustrate  the  distinction — let  us  view  at 
close  range  one  of  our  generation's  pet  insistences.  By 
the  doctrine  of  freedom  and  natural  rights,  many  a 
man  has  l)oen  induced  to  believe  that  the  world  owes 
him  a  living.  This  notion  has  almost  become  a  matter 
of  fanaticism  witli  some  of  the  modern  agitators ;  and 
the  argument  is  indeed  though  specious  very  seductive. 
Xo  man — this  is  th£  manner  of  its  reasoning — was  con- 
sulted before  his  birth  whether  he  would  accept  life's 
burden.  Others  have,  without  our  consent,  called  us 
into  existence ;  they,  therefore,  owe  us  compensation  for 
the  load  which  they  have  laid  on  us. 

In  Scliiller's  E^euber,  this  creed  is  expressed  in  forci- 
ble words,  but  also  with  a  crude  and  most  disgusting 
( niphasis.  Schiller's  Ea^uber  is  the  echo  of  the  doctrine 
of  freedom  as  understood  by  his  day.  For  this  drama, 
fruit  of  the  stress  and  storm  period  of  the  poet's  devel- 
opment, reflects  characteristically  the  temper  of  an  age 
which  has  a  great  grievance  to  s^.t  right,  and  hurls  its 
protest  against  all  existing  institutions  and  prevailing 
opinions.  With  the  instinct  of  a  poet,  the  intuition  of  a 
1  igh  mind,  with  the  fervor  becoming  the  messenger  of  a 
new  revelation,  I  might  say,  Schiller  pursues  to  its  last 
consequences  the  new  protesting  thought.  His  hero,  in 
asking  his  parents  what  he  owed  to  them,  has  indeed  put 
forth  in  one  concrete  case,  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter.  The  bold  insistence  upon  rights  blinds  our  eyes 
to  the  counter  proposition  that  rights  presuppose  certain 
duties. 

14 


I  have  heard  hitel}-  a  good  mother  argiiing  that  chil- 
dren are  not  under  obligation  of  gratitude  to  parents. 
She  would  invert  tlie  relation  and  put  parents  under 
obligation  to  their  children.  This  good  mother  uncon- 
sciously professed  at  this  late  day  the  moral  mood  of 
Schillers  first  outcry.  Modern  society,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, acts  upon  the  presumption  that  a  certain  command 
should  be  amended  to  read:  ''Honor  thy  son  and  thy 
daughter,  that  thy  days  may  be  long  on  the  earth  which 
the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee.^'  Tliis  revised  edition 
of  tlie  Decalogue  has  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  many  of 
the  up-to-date  "Utbermenschen.^'  Young  men  are  com- 
fortably of  the  belief  that  the  fathers  must  provide  for 
them,  and  their  sisters  think  that  the  mother^s  place 
is  that  of  a  willing  minister  to  their  wants.  The  theor}^ 
of  absolute  rights  furnishes  the  philosophical  back- 
ground for  this  creed.  Practically  it  resulted  in  a  com- 
plete disassociation  of  duties  and  rights.  The  efforts 
of  "the  wise  and  prudent"  have  been  directed  to  the  one 
end  to  reserve  the  rights  for  themselves  and  to  saddle 
the  duties  always  upon  others;  for  if  the  world  is  our 
('ebtor.  if  it  owes  us  a  living,  and  we  are  entitled  to  the 
freedom  to  collect  just  debts,  we  should  be  fools  not  to 
make  the  most  of  our  privileges.  Life  under  this 
philosophy  is  reduced  to  a  series  of  combats  from  which 
the  stronger  every_  time  will  emerge  the  irresponsible 
victor.  The  theory  of  inalienable  duties  will  reverse 
the  relation.  We  are  indebted  to  the  world.  As  soon 
ns  we  have  attained  our  majority,  the  world,  primarily, 
owes  us  nothing.  We  must  prove  our  worthiness  to  be 
the  recipients  of  the  world's  bounty,  the  world  expects 
us  to  fill  a  place  in  its  economy. 

It  is  the  world  which  opens  for  us  opportunities,  and 
endows  U'^  with  capabilities.     There  is  no  normal  man 

15 


but  is  given  his  chance  and  is  furnished  his  means. 
These  means  are  given  to  us  in  the  crude  state — it  is 
for^  us  to  develop  them.  Self-culture  is  one  of  the  first 
among  the  duties  that  are  inalienable. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  up  to  a  certain  period  of 
life  this  obligation  to  fit  future  men  for  their  intended 
st<ation  and  service,  is  upon  the  guides  of  infancy  and 
childhood.  It  is  theirs  to  see  to  it  that  the  new  indi- 
vidual be  trained  into  usefulness;  but  when  the  days  of 
dependent  cluldhood  and  of  half  dependent  adolescence 
are  over,  the  duty  of  self-culture  ensues.  Man  is  never 
jierfect.  Is  man  but  a  machine?  Acceptance  of  tins 
definition  would  amount  to  abdication  of  the  crown 
which  should  grace  our  brow.  Man  thinks  and  feels; 
thought  and  feeling  must  be  cultivated  and  developed. 
The  doctrine  of  inalienable  duties  tells  me  that  every 
man  is  called  to  do  something  in  behalf  of  the  world.  It 
is  the  concern  of  correct  moral  and  intellectual  peda- 
gogics to  discover  in  each  case  that  part  which  the  indi- 
vidual is  destined  to  play. 

Why  are  so  many  lives  shipwrecked?  The  answer  is 
easily  given.  Society,  as  now  organized,  does  not  on  the 
whole  permit  men  to  gravitate  toward  the  places  for 
which  by  capacity  and  love  they  are  best  fitted.  And 
furthermore,  fo  many,  by  a  false  sense  of  values,  are  in- 
duced to  ne.g-lect  their  natural  place  and  seek  other  sta- 
tions, considered  to  be  higher  and  more  honorable, 
which  they  have  not  the  ability  to  fill.  I  am  of  the 
opinion,  confirmed  more  and  more  as  with  increasing 
years  the  range  of  my  observations  widens,  that  ship- 
wreck in  life,  as  far  as  moral  weakness  or  perversity  ha?3 
not  invited  the  disaster,  is  almost  invariably  traceable 
to  a  false  education — to  the  incapacity  to  find  or  even 
to  discover  the  place  for  which  the  stranded  sailor  over 


life's  ocean  was  nieant  by  primarily  natural  and  second- 
arily developed  talents. 

Yet,  in  the  face  of  these  thousand-voiced  warnings, 
heavy  with  sighs  and  tears,  what  course  do  parents  per- 
sist in  adopting?  The  boy  is  only  fit  to  be  a  cobbler. 
Yet  our  pride  does  not  allow  us  to  have  him  follow  this 
honorable,  if  humble  craft.  Our  boy  a  cobbler !  No ! 
He  must  be  a  physician !  He  is  pressed  and  pushed 
through  the  schools;  our  ambition  is  finally  attained. 
Our  son  is  at  last  a  doctor  of  medicine.  Buti — his  de- 
gree to  the  contrary  notwithstanding — his  cobbler  na- 
ture crops  out.  He  is  too  little  of  a  cobbler  to  be  of 
use  at  the  bench,  and  never  enough  of  a  physician  to 
serve  with  credit  at  the  sick-bed.  He  is  a  "mis-fit," 
to  use  a  very  graphic,  and  I  hope  well  understood, 
phrase.  He  is  a  "mis-fit.''  He  is  in  a  position  which 
is  too  large  for  him,  and  into  which  he  cannot  grow. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  pressure  of  social  condition 
often  forces  one  that  is  gifted  to  be  a  healer,  to  work 
night  and  day  in  the  sweat-shop.  Occasionally  genius 
will  burst  the  bars,  but  genius  always  "is  exceptional. 
Genius,  indeed,  laughs  like  love  at  locks  and  keys. 
Genius  in  the  manger  takes  its  seat  at  the  right  hand  of 
God  on  the  judgment  day.  Genius  imprisoned,  be- 
comes the  advocate  of  liberty  for  all  hunijanity.  Bur 
where  one  man  of  genius  rises  out  of  and  above  his 
original  estate,  thousand  souls  warmed  by  talent's 
milder  glow  fret  themselves  to  nothing,  like  the  life  of 
a  moth,  under  untoward  social  circumstances.  It  is  a 
jjitiful  fact  that  the  fewest  of  us  have  awakened  to  the 
sense  of  their  responsibility  incumbent  upon  them  for 
the  impulses  we  may  give  to  the  course  of  the  lives  en- 
trusted to  our  moulding  care,  with  a  view  to  lift  or 
lower  them  to  their  proper  level. 

17 


If  the  right  to  life  is  inalienable  the  duty  to  make 
the  proper  use  thereof  is  as  emphatically  inalienable. 
The  individual  is  always  under  the  social  relation.  This 
is  the  fulcrum  for  his  lever.  Not  as  he  lists,  but  as 
the  social  welfare  and  his  power  for  social  service  sug- 
gest, must  the  individual  shape  his  owm  career.  And 
again,  our  life  is  primarily  not  free  from  the  social 
bond  woven  by  the  ancestors  from  whose  loins  we  sprang. 
To  continue  and  enlarge  the  historical  current  on  the 
bosom  of  which  we  have  been  cradled  is  a  duty  more 
sacred  than  which  none  there  is.  Language,  nationality 
and  religion  are  historic  forces — treasures  transmitted 
from  fixther  to  son.  No  child  is  free  to  -neglect  them. 
The  last  bom  has  merely  the  right  to  deepen  their  chan- 
nel, to  enrich  their  contents  and  increase  their  potency. 

And  this  same  consideration  will  throw  much  light 
on  the  most  modern  of  our  perplexities,  the  rights  of 
woman.  It  is  clear  that  men  and  women  have  not  iden- 
tical social  functions.  Nature  and  history  both  have 
co-operated  to  differentiate  their  respective  contributions 
to  the  common  wealth.  Nature's  edict  in  this  sphere  Is 
unalterable.  Tlie  glory  of  motherhood  is  denied  to  the 
male.  Nor  can  an  unbiased  mind  bring  himself  to  be- 
lieve that  the  division  in  labor  between  the  sexes  as 
determined  by  historical  usage  is  altogether  to  be  dis- 
missed as  arliitrary,  and  therefore  subject  to  elective 
readjustment.  Under  normal  conditions,  man  will  do 
most  for  society  ])y  continuing  to  be  the  bread-winner, 
while  woman  will  do  most  valual)le  social  service  l)y 
assuming  as  heretofore  the  responsibilities  of  the  home 
circle.  This  whole  controversy  is  thrown  out  of  the 
proper  angle  of  vision  by  the  mistaken  notion  to  which 
I  liave  called  attention  before,  that  certain  lines  of 
service  represent  higher  social  values  than  others.  To  be 

19 


the  political  arbiter  of  the  nation's  destiny  is  by  no 
means  of  greater  worth  tlmn  to  be  the  mother  or  educator 
of  the  future  men  and  women  destined  to  be  the  nation 
tomorrow.  The  duties  of  womanhood  are  as  inalienable 
because  as  essential  to  woman's  truer  life  as  are  its 
rights. 

And  does  this  not  also  hold  good  in  reference  to 
'property  ?  To  own  the  fruit  of  one's  labor  is  an  inalien- 
able right;  to  dispose  of  one's  earnings  by  will  and 
testament  may  eyen  be  included  in  this  category;  though 
some  theorists  would  question  the  legitimacy  of  such 
latitude.  Yet,  property  is  our  ovm  only  to  do  therewith 
what  shall  prosper  the  common  life.  Tlie  right  to  pos- 
sess is  limited  by  the  duty  to  utilize  one's  own  for  the 
social  good.  By  the  bill  of  duties,  the  individual  propri- 
etor is  only  the  steward  and  trustee  for  others.  The->e 
"others,"  are,  in  concentric  circles,  his  family,  his  home 
city,  his  nation,  his  racial  kinsmen,  his  coreligionists, 
his  co-partisans.  But  it  is  for  "others"  not  for  self 
that  he  must  administer  his  belongings.  ISTor  is  property 
ever  more  sacred  than  humanity.  Wherever  the  right 
of  property  clashes  with  a  duty  to  humanity,  the  former 
has  no  credentials  that  are  entitled  to  consideration. 
iSTegro  slavery  is  one  of  the  many  illustrations  of  this 
precedence  of  man  before  money.  Where  wealth  is 
root.ed  in  the  ruin  or  the  degradation  of  men,  it  is  a 
usurper  that  should  be  accorded  the  shortest  shrift. 
Moloch  competition  shall  never  feed  on  human  sacri- 
fices. A  civilization  and  a  liberty  that  allow  this  idol 
to  exact  this  precious  tribute  are  barbarous. 

Labor,  too,  has  duties,  not  merely  rights.  In  order 
to  break  shackles,  the  consecration  of  a  new  slaveiy  in 
the  place  of  the  old,  is  of  all  follies  the  most  egregious. 
Yet  this  is  what  they  aim  at  in  these  our  days  of  in- 

19 


dustrial  warfare.  Combination  is  turned  into  conspir- 
acy, under  the  prevailing  system  of  industrial  mili- 
tarism. A  union  which  presumes  that  all  men  are  equal 
for  consumption  and  therefore  exacts  for  unequal  service 
equal  compensation,  violates  the  eternal  law  of  justice 
as  flagrantly  as  does  a  wage  scheme  which  reduces  hu- 
man beings  to  the  low  pass  of  dead  tools.  Duty,  not 
right,  must  also  on  this  battlefield  work  the  final  paci- 
fication. 

The  experiences  of  the  last  century  have  clearly  shown, 
and  the  most  recent  social  disturbances  have  once  more 
emphasized,  the  weakness  of  the  social  structure  ground- 
ed exclusively  on  the  theory  of  rights.  This  theory  was 
commissioned  to  do  the  pioneer's  work.  '  It  removed  old 
and  unjust  barriers,  cleared  jungles-  of  superstitions  and 
prejudices  and  pushing  on  into  regions  promising 
greater  latitude  for  unfolding  humanity,  surveyed  the 
possibilities  of  an  unborn  future.  Still,  after  the  pio- 
neer, the  permanent  settler  should  plough  and  plant  the 
clearings.  And  for  this  task,  the  path-finder  creed  of 
absolute  freedom  and  riglits,  of  irresponsible  individual- 
ism, is  woefully  inadequate. 

The  philosophy  of  duty  must  regulate  and  modify  the 
creed  and  grced'^of  rights.  But  the  sceptre  is  allowed 
this  better  conception  only  where  a  deeper  appreciation 
of  man's  moral  nature  obtains.  What  our  generation 
stands  in  greatest  need  of  is  a  thorough-going  moral  re- 
generation and  new  religious  re-awakening. 

Of  course,  if  morality  is  prudential  calculation  of 
proximate  or  remote  advantages,  and  religion  is  mor- 
bid ecstasy  or  mechanical  ceremonialism  or  myopic  dog- 
matism, either  energy  by  us  invoked  will  prove  inef- 
fective. But  morality  sanctified  into  religiousness  and 
religion  consecrated  to  morality  is  that  impulse  never 

20 


ceasing  wliich  urges  man  to  strive  after  an  ever-enlarg- 
ing perfection^  while  and  because  it  quickens  within  him 
ever  anew  the  consciousness  of  his  imperfections.  Ee- 
ligion  and  morality  of  this  blessed  character  are  magnets 
drawing  man  out  of  his  isolation  and  egotism^  hitching 
his  cart  to  the  universal  purposes  and  linking  his  one 
life  both  to  the  All-life  and  the  life  of  all.  The  degen- 
eracy and  impotency  of  our  fashionable  and  official  reli- 
gion, as  well  as  the  sham  and  shame  of  our  morality  of 
outward  conventionalism  and  secular  respectability,  have 
contributed  most  to  make  the  fruits  of  our  civilization 
so  impalatable.  In  a  much  truer  sense  than  its  crowned 
coiner  wot  of,  the  winged  phrase  which  dropped  froxTi 
the  first  German  Emperor's  lips  immediately  after  the 
second  attempt  on  his  life,  rings  out  an  insistent  warn- 
ing. "Our  people/'  said  the  aged  monarch,  '^must  be 
brought  back  to  religion."  I  should  say,  religion  must 
be  recovered  for  the  people.  Among  thinkers  the  royal 
observation  has  indeed  aroused  responsive  sympathy. 
Man,  this  is  the  universal  concensus  of  those  most  com- 
petent to  speak,  needs  again  to  learn  and  ever  after  to 
remember  that  he  is  not  a  machine.  The  neglect  of  this 
simple  but  most  vital  truth  has  brought  about  the  de- 
humanization  of  the  millions  for  the  enrichment  of  a 
few  millionaires.  This  is  fundamental  to  the  unrest  of 
the  "dispossessed."  It  is  not  true  that  the  strucrgle  on 
their  part  is  ultimately  waged  for  larger  loaves  of  bread. 
The  pith  of  modem  social  agitation  lies  in  the  outcry  of 
cramped  and  outraged  humanity.  The  masses  would  be 
men  not  tools,  souls  not  ''hands/'  They  rebel  against 
the  brutal  apotheosis  of  success  and  the  successful.  Their 
bitterness  is  unconsciously  a  rigliteous  resentment  of  the 
shifting  of  life's  center  from  the  heing  to  the  having, 
from  the  doing  to  the  owning.    Human  life  has  a  value 

21 


which  is  independent  of  the  law  of  demand  and  supply. 
This  proposition  is  religion's  fundamental  announcc- 
]nent,  its  translation  into  practice  morality's  prime  so- 
licitude. The  religion  of  this  sacramental  humanity  and 
the  morality  of  its  practical  grace  is  needed  in  both  our 
palaces  and  our  hovels.  Men  shall  again  come  to  bs 
something  rather  than  strive  to  have  something.  Honor 
shall  again  be  the  reward  of  the  being,  not,  as  now,  be 
the  concomitant  of  the  having.  The  pyramid  of  success 
shall  not  be  built  that  in  measure  as  it  slopes  toward  the 
apex,  both  the  being  and  the  having  of  those  at  or  nearer 
the  base  are  gradually  but  effectively  crushed  out,  and 
for  the  few  who  have  risen  thousands  have  sunk  from 
the  joy  of  humanity  into  the  brutal  stupor  of  slavery,  a 
condition  under  which  they  cease  to  be  rated  as  men  and 
are  counted  only  as  ^'hands.^'  Belgium,  the  paradise  of 
unrestricted  Manchester  commercial  individualism  and 
industrial  fredom,  strikingly  illustrates  the  effects 
upon  humjan  beings  produced  by  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  the  brutal  religion  less  valuation  by  the  standard 
of  the  ^Tiaving."  But  it  is  not  merely  at  Brussels  where 
til  is  ]\rolocli  is  worshiped;  its  votaries  are  numerous  in 
Bombay  and  Bagdad,  in  Berlin  and  Barcelona,  in  Buenos 
Ayres  and  Baltimore.  Their  sacerdotal  hymns  might 
borrow  Heine's  words : 

"Ein  Eecht  zii  leben  haben  nur,  die  etwas  haben. 
Und  wenn  du  gar  nichts  hast,  so  lass  dich  begraben.'' 

This  arrogance  of  wealth,  barren  of  every  consious- 
ness  of  its  own  social  function  and  of  all  conscience,  is 
responsible  for  the  bigotry  of  hatred  enthroned  in  the 
hearts  of  the  masses.  E/cligion  preaching  the  gospel  of 
duty,  and  morality  practising  this  evangel,  alone  will 
build  the  bridge  over  which  humanity  will  pass  on  to 
social  co-operation  and  mutual  confidence. 

22 


Prophetic  religion  struck  this  ke3'note  at  a  time  when 
Rome  or  Greece  had  scarce  learned  to  lisp  the  alphabet 
of  their  dialects.  Amos  and  Hosea  taught  that  justice 
and  righteousness  are  the  pillars  of  true  humanity,  when 
Rome  was  as  yet  unknown  in  the  annals  of  time.  Upon 
whom,  then,  is  the  duty  to  herald  forth  the  prophetic 
message?  Upon  us,  the  sons  of  those  to  whom  the  pro- 
phets first  spoke.  Judaism  was  always  the  lover  of  lib- 
erty^ but  it  was  also  always  the  teacher  of  responsibility. 
Duty  is  our  sacramental  spellword,  for  without  it  man^s 
dust  is  reft  of  its  destiny  to  frame  divinity.  The 
eighteenth  century  thought  was  born  under  the  zodiacal 
sign  of  rights,  that  of  our  day  must  be  under  the  sidereal 
symbol  of  duty.  In  the  exhibition  of  paintings  which 
the  French  government  arranged  in  1889  to  illustrate 
the  progress  of  French  art  during  the  century  elapsed 
since  the  Revolution,  I  noticed  one  which  betokened  not 
merely  the  master's  great  technical  skill  in  colors  and 
lines,  but  still  m^ore  his  deep  appreciation  of  the  change 
in  task  for  our  day  from  that  which  saw  the  Bastile's 
capture.  The  canvas  showed  two  panels.  The  first  rep- 
resented the  spirit  of  1789  :  young  men  and  women  rush- 
ing to  the  combat,  courageously  rallying  around  a  fiag 
bearing  the  legend :  "Droits,"  rights.  The  other  was  a 
confession  of  what  should  be  the  spirit  of  1889.  The 
sciences  and  industries  incarnated  in  human  forms  be- 
spoke the  beholder^s  attention  as  the  achievements  of 
modern  civilization  were  brought  to  his  notice  by  means 
of  suggestive  symbols  and  signs.  But  this  scene  was 
under  the  consecration  of  the  spellword :  ^'Devoir  "  Duty. 
Yea,  that  painter  was  indeed  a  John  Baptist.  His  ser- 
mon was  an  appeal  to  repentance,  a  preparation  for  the 
advent.  The  Messianic  consummation  hinges  on  hu- 
manity's conversion  away  from  the  preliminary  dispen- 

23 


sation  of  man*s  vialicnahlo  rights  to  the  Apostolic  faith 
in  mans  inalienahle  duties.  "Devoirs/'  not  "Droits," 
sums  up  what  shoukl  be  the  creed  of  the  true  man.  Un- 
der its  glow  and  light,  as  the  prophet  puts  it,  the  desert 
will  wreathe  itself  in  flowers,  the  dry  land  will  gush 
forth  its  bubbling  springs.  By  its  inspiration,  man  will 
be  brought  up  to  God  and  God  be  found  again  in  man's 
bosom.  Society — a  vaster  life,  a  co-operative  brother- 
hood— will  come  into  the  heritage  of  peace,  and  greed 
will  be  displaced  by  a  holier  zeal,  that  to  outstrip  others 
in  service  and  usefulness — in  character  and  being — not 
in  enjoyment  and  having.  Let  us  follow  the  Elijahs 
of  our  day;. they  precede  the  birth  of  the  nober  Messi- 
anic age  of  Duty. 


24 


MytH,  Miracle  and 
MidrasH 


A.  discoxjr.se: 

fBY 
EMIl^  G.  HIR.SCH 


The  Reform  Advocate 
•     Bloch  &.  Newman,  Publishers 
204  Dearborn  Street.  _  _  -  Chicago,  III. 


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1 


MYTH,  MIRACLE  AND  MIDRASH 


Goethe  tells  us  that  ^'das  Wimder  its  des  Grlaubens 
liebstes  Kind/'  In  the  spirit  of  his  times  and  a  true 
exponent  of  their  philosophy  he  insists  that  the  miracles 
recorded  in  the  ancient  documents  of  the  synagogue 
and  the  church  partake  of  the  character  of  free  inven- 
tions. According  to  his  theory  which  is  even  at  the 
present  day  shared  by  many,  they  have  sprung  from  the 
prolific  womb  of  faith.  He  inverts,  as  is  easily  seen, 
the  commonly  defended  doctrine  which  would  have  faith 
rest  on  mii-acles.  He  suggests,  therefore,  the  thought 
that  miracles  cannot  corroborate  the  contentions  of 
faith,  but  that  the  acceptance  of  miracles  presupposes 
t1^e  dominant  influence  of  faith.  Undoubtedly  this 
view  is  the  truer.  In  Lessing's  Nathan  the  same  con- 
struction reappears  in  the  dialogue  between  the  titular 
figure  of  the  play  and  his  foster  daughter.  She  main- 
tains that  her  rescue  was  wrought  through  the  inven- 
tion of  an  angel  sent  by  God  on  this  errand.  The  wi&er 
mind  of  the  maturer  and  far-traveled  man  sees  through 
her  conceit.  He  detects  in  it  the  fruitage  of  her  nurse's 
training.  Had  she  not  been  taught  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  angelic  mediators,  her  escape  from  the 
greed  of  fire  would  not  have  impressed  her  as  the  direc^; 
interference  willed  by  God.  It  is  his  calm  confidence' 
that  the  greatest  miracle  and  wonder  is  that  the  mighty 
manifestations  of  wondrous  power  bv  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded everywhere  become  so  familiar  to  us  as  to  lose 
for  us  the  import  of  the  miraculous. 

1 


Nathan's  thesis  carries,  indeed,  a  telling  point.  Just 
now,  when  in  the  full  flush  of  our  wealth  of  intimate 
communications  witli  nature  wc  arc  apt  to  overlook  the 
unyielding  limitations  of  our  knowledge  of  nature's  fun- 
damentals, the  caution  uttered  by  the  high-prieF"Jt  of  re- 
ligious tolerance  might  ^rith  profit  be  laid  to  our  heart. 

It  is  not  true  that  the  sciences  have  lifted  the  curtain 
of  mystery  from  olf  tlie  face  of  creation.  The  wisest 
among  us  is  at  his  best  imprisoned  on  an 
island  of  no  wide  area,  surrounded  on  all  sides 
by  an  ocean  screened  l)y  impenetra])le  banks  of 
fog.  The  beating  of  the  tide  upon  the  shore,  and  drift- 
wood cast  up  from  the  unseen  immensity  beyond,  en- 
courage the  imagination  intent  upon  construing  from  a 
few  fragments  the  plan  of  the  unexplored  waste;  bur. 
more  than  such  provisional  because  anticipatory  vision 
into  hidden  things  and  currents  even  the  bold  sciences 
of  tlie  present  day  do  not  vouchsafe  to  never  so  devoted 
a  courtier  of  their  secrets.  If  mystery  be  the  ground- 
work upon  which  faith  builds  its  altars,  and  unexplored 
depths  invite  its  miracle-fed  assurance,  there  is  not  the 
least  excuse  for  holding  that  the  exact  sciences  have  put 
an  end  to  the  dominion  of  religion,  or  closed  forever  the 
portals  of  its  wondci*  palace.  The  clear  thinker  has  no 
doubts  that  the  sciences  themselves  have  resort  to  fait'i 
as  intently  as  have  the  creeds  of  the  world. 
Matter  and  force,  the  conservation  of  energ}', 
atom  and  molecule  and  molecular  affinities;  the 
very  hypothesis  of  evolution  through  natural  selec- 
tion; the  genesis  of  life  and  the  production  of  thought, 
tlie  chemical  substratum  of  consciousness  and  similar 
concepts  or  operations  which  are  the  stock  phrases  and 
familiar  contentions  of  modern  scientific  reasoning,  are, 
if  examined  to  their  ultimate  elements,  airy,  thought- 

2 


woven  assumptions  of  the  limnan  mind.  The  sciences 
presuppose  as  vital  an  imagination  as  does  faith;  they 
make  as  heavy  drafts  upon  the  store  of  our  credulity  as 
does  the  credo  or  the  metaphysics  of  the  church,  the 
synagogue,  and  the  mosque. 

But  religion  to  be'  true  to  her  mission  in  these  days 
of  growing  knowledge  cannot  bar  her  territory  against 
the  inroads  of  reason.  Eeason  is  indeed  unable  to  ex- 
plain t^ll  that  presses  upon  our  curiosity  "with  the  de- 
mand for  an  account  of  its  rise  and  development,  of  its 
purpose  or  destiny.  "There  are  more  things  between 
beaven  and  earth,  Horatio,  than  are  dreamt  of  in  your 
philosophy.*'  But  the  irrepressible  passion  resident  in 
tlie  breast  of  man  for  an  harmonious  interpretation  of 
the  universe  and  of  life  will  not  admit  that  two  conflict- 
ing and  mutually  contradictory  theories  purporting  both 
to  hold  t]ie  key  to  the  unread  arcana  or  the  known  facts 
of  nature  and  fate,  can  be  both  true.  Modern  thought 
bas  convinced  itself  of  the  truth  that  the  world  is  under 
fhe  dominion  of  law.  Order  and  regularity  of  sequence 
between  cause  and  effect  are  the  postulates  of  the  as- 
simiption  that  one  law  reigns  in  the  heights  and  in  the 
depths.  The  suspension  of  that  law  for  whatever  end 
in  view  wonld  not  be  evidence  of  omniscience  or  omni- 
potence. Thinkers  have  no  diificulty  to  establish  this 
proposition. 

An  all-wise  Creator  must  have  foreseen  in  the  hour  of 
the  creation  the  future  necessities  calling  for  the  modi- 
fication of  the  general  law;  if  he  did  not  possess  this  in- 
sight he  cannot  be  credited  with  omniscience.  But  if 
he  had  tliis  anticipatory  knowledge  of  the  insufficiency 
of  his  general  and  ordinary  provisions  and  nevertheless 
neglected  to  so  amend  them  that  at  the  proper  crisis 
they  would  respond  spontaneously  to  the  emergency,  his 

3 


only  alternative  left  is  the  denial  of  omnipotence  to 
the  creative  energy.  On  either  horn  of  the  dilemma 
the  belief  in  miracles  suffers  irreparable  and  fat^l  havoc. 
A  God  who  cannot  foresee  that  his  original  laws  will  not 
operate  to  carry  out  his  intentions  under  all  circum- 
stances lacks  omniscience;  a  God  who  foreseeing  this 
defect  cannot  so  arrange  his  work  as  to  meet  the  future 
emergency  lacks  omnipotence.  The  appeal  to  God's 
omnipotence  for  which  there  is  neither  limitation  nor 
impossibility  cannot  be  admitted  in  rebuttal.  For  in- 
herent in  our  idea  of  God  is  the  necessity  of  His  acting 
reasonably.  Our  God  cannot  be  swayed  by  whim  or 
caprice.  The  supreme  law-giver  is  himself  under  the 
law.  Law  and  liberty  are  not  mutually  exclusive. 
Slavery  involves  obedience  to  a  law  which  is  contrary  to 
our  highest  nature.  Liberty  roots  in  compliance  with 
the  law  which  corresponds  to  the  essential  exposition  of 
our  own  being.  Compulsion  is  absent  in  freedom-^  not 
so  the  voluntary  and  spontaneous  execution  of  the  in- 
herent necessities  under  which  our  life  to  be  complete 
must  be  lived. 

In  God  there  is  law  and  freedom,  in  Him  both  are 
identical.  A  lawless  God  is  inconceivable.  The  omni- 
potence of  God  is  not  of  one  fibre  with  its  popular  mis- 
conception which  makes  it  the  equivalent  of  the  license 
to  do  according  to  unrestricted  pleasure.  An  all-power- 
ful God  will  not  and  cannot  turn  water  into  wine  or 
suspend  the  operation  of  the  law  of  gravitation.  ^'Ha- 
Yad  Ad'honay  fil'zar?"  is,  if  adduced  to  decide  this 
problem,  at  once  answered  by  every  one  who  understands 
what  the  philosophical  concept  of  the  deity  implies,  in 
the  negative.  God  cannot  undo  and  deny  himself.  The 
verv  implications  of  the  idea  of  God  reject  this  possi- 
bility as  not  within  the  range  of  his  power.     Being  the 

4 


lawgiver  he  is  himself  under  his  own  law.  The  good 
old  Talmudists  so  often  misunderstood  and  undervalued, 
especially  by  such  as  know  of  them  and  their  thoughts 
only  from  hearsay,  had  already  this  appreciation  of  the 
implications  inherent  in  the  God-idea.  Much  fun  has 
been  poked  at  them  for  having  discussed  the  to  us  more 
than  empty  question  whether  God  observes  the  minutiae 
of  the  rabbinical  ritual  code,  and  for  having  indulged  in 
the  to  them  by  no  means  fanciful  descriptions  of  God 
studying  the  law  in  accordance  with  the  approved 
canons  of  rabbinical  disputations  and  wearing  the  pre- 
scribed phylacteries.  Eisenmenger  and  his  followers 
both  among  the  non-Jews  and  the  Jews  have  not  beea 
slow  to  call  attention  to  these  well-nigh  blasphemous 
vagaries  and  exuberances  of  rabbinical  impudence  as 
they  chose  to  style  them.  But  to  my  mind  these  Hag- 
gadic  speculations  betray  on  the  part  of  their  authors  a 
deep  appreciation  of  the  philosophic  thought  that  God 
as  the  giver  of  the  law  is  by  the  very  essence  of  his  God- 
hood  inherently  bound  by  that  law.  This  throws  a  new 
light  on  the  oft-quoted  but  only  rarely  correctly  appre- 
hended "nomistic"  character  of  the  rabbis'  God-idea. 

But  be  this  as  it  may,  certain  it  is  that  Judaism  in  all 
of  its  phases  attributed  little  if  any  evidential  force  to 
miracles.  The  attentive  reader  of  the  old  law  bearing 
on  the  credit  to  be  given  a  claimant  of  prophetic  powers 
will  recall  without  much  difficulty  proof  abundant  to 
this  fact.  T\^e  ^'Torah  is  not  in  heaven  and  it  is  not 
beyond  the  sea.''  In  the  decisions  of  disputed  rab- 
binical applications  of  the  law,  supernatural  signs  and 
portents  played  no  part.  They  were  rejected.  This  is 
clearly  shown  in  the  well-known  passage  (Baba  Metzia 
59  b)  where  the  experience  of  Rabbi  Elieser  is  recorded, 
wl:o,  thrice  appealing  to  miraculous  phenomena  which 

5 


he  provoked,  found  his  contentions  none  the  less  em- 
phatically rejected  by  the  ar^scmbled  teachers.  Even 
the  heavenly  voice  "Bath  KoV  was  not  accorded  a  vote 
in  that  court.  Of  course,  the  Biblical  record  remem- 
bers a  multitude  of  miraculous  happenings.  The  rab- 
binical writings  are  in  turn  not  poor  in  stories  of  men 
who  exercised  what  we  may  call  miraculous  control  over 
the  stores  of  nature.  The  rabbinical  Rip- Van- Wink] o 
'Honiah,  the  "circle-man/'  is  probably  well  known  to 
even  you  as  the  commander  of  the  clouds.  But  the 
rabbis  felt  the  difficulties  unavoidably  involved  in  the 
assumption  of  an  arbitrary  interference  on  the  part  of 
God  with  the  laws  of  creation,  and  in  order  to  dull  their 
edge  taught  that  whatever  is  chronicled  as  such  came  to 
pass  in  obedience  to  a  condition  imposed  in  the  very  act 
of  creation.  The  Red  Sea,  for  instance,  was  in  the  he-' 
ginning  so  constituted  as  to  divide  before  the  fleeing 
host  of  Israel  when  Moses  lifted  up  his  staff.  Jonah's 
fish  was  created  with  the  destiny  to  save  the  truant  fugi- 
tive from  God's  commission  (Tan'hum  Toldoth  Noah). 
In  this  way  the  rabbis  obviated  the  dilemma  analyzed 
aljove.  The  miracle  ceased,  in  fact,  to  be  a  miracle; 
the  event  occurred  in  consequence  of  a  fore-ordained 
natural  law.  The  law  of  nature  was  not  suspended  nor 
violated.  One  who  is  acquainted  with  much  of  th.:3 
latest  Cliri'stian  literature  on  this  mooted  matter  knows 
that  in  taking  this  position  the  teachers  of  the  rabbinical 
school  anticipated  the  reasoning  of  the  most  modern 
spokesmen  and  writers  on  apologetics  in  what  is  called 
the  new  orthodoxy  in  church  circles. 

Tlie  esteem  in  wliicli  workers  of  miracles  were  held  by 
the  rabbis  was  not  of  a  very  high  order  (Sabbath  53). 
Even  pious  'Honia  was  rebuked  by  Simon  b.  Sheta'h  for 
misleading  the  people  (Ta'anith  23).  Throughout  Tal- 

6 


miidic  and  also  the  later  philosophical  writings  of  the 
Middle  Ages  the  tendency  is  clearly  indicated  to  find 
wherever  possible  a  natural  explanation  for  the  miracles 
or  to  interpret  them  as  allegories.  Abarbanel,  for  in- 
stance, does  not  scruple  to  say  that  the  story  of  Jonah's 
lodgino-  in  the  fishes  belly  was  a  dream  which  the 
prophet  had.  Such  stories  as  represent  God's  appear- 
ance to  men  in  the  guise  of  an  angel,  a  human  being,  a 
devourino'  fire,  or  seated  on  a  wonderfully  splendid 
throne,  were  held  to  have  originated  in  the  imagination 
of  the  beholder,  (Jebhamoth,  49  b.,  Maimonides  Moreh 
II,  43 :  Yesodhe  Hattorah  I,  9 ;  and  Einhorn  Xer 
Tamid,  p.  13.)  ,  In  Albo's  IH'arim  (III,  8)  the  inci- 
dent of  the  burning  bush  is  explained  on  this  basis. 
And  wlien  the  old  interpreters  failed  in  this  manner  to 
IT  tiiralize  or  allegorize  the  Biblical  story  they  some- 
tin  es  would  indicate  their  doubt  in  an  unmistakal)le 
maimer.  (See  Yonia  54,  b.)  Xot  to  lose  myself  in  a 
liaystack  of  quotations,  I  must  forego  further  citations 
from  our  mediaeval  authorities.  One  statement,  how- 
ever, bv  ]\[aimonides  deserves  to  be  recalled.  He  em- 
phasizes the  fact  that  according  to  our  religion  never 
can  a  miracle-  affect  the  moral  nature  of  man.  Catas- 
trophical  conversions  in  consequence  of  sudden  marvel- 
ous illumination  are  therefore  excluded.  And  this  is  a 
distinction  which  Jewish  orthodoxy  when  contemplating 
rhristinn  rr-vivnlism  may  Well  accentuate.  On  still  an- 
other point  ]\raimonides  is  equally  strenuous.  Tlie 
laws  of  nature  are  permanent.  Xever  by  miracle  is  the* 
fundamental  order  of  creation  interrupted. 

But  what  is  our  attitude?  Do  we  belong  to  the  blind 
an  1  unquestioning  believers  that  accept  the  written 
word  of  the  Biblical  stories  without  inquiry ;  or  shall  we 
rana-e  ourselves  under  the  banner  of  the  rationalists ;  or 


-Nj 


reject  the  stories  as  idle  if  not  intriguing  inventions 
palmed  off  for  purposes  of  a  questionable  moral  nature 
upon  a  credulous  people;  or  shall  we  hold  that  these 
stories  are  fundamentally  the  productions  of  minds  in- 
capable of  recording  what  they  saw  because  diseased  and 
subject  to  hallucinations?  For  all  of  these  widely 
variant  assumptions  defenders  have  arisen  both  within 
and  without  the  household  of  Israel.  Believers  who 
ask  not  and  inquire  not,  notwithstanding  the  better  ex- 
ample set  to  them  by  the  old  teachers  of  the  rabbinical 
times  whose  words  I  have  in  part  quoted^  are  by  no 
means  in  the  minority  among  the  present  day  Jews. 
For,  bear  in  mind,  it  is  absolute  folly  .to  hold  that  we 
American  Jews  constitute  the  preponderating  party  and 
have  therefore  the  right  to  maintain  that  what  we  de- 
clare to  be  the  tenets  of  modern  Judaism,  has  universal 
currency  as  such. 

Those  who  would  excommunicate  one  or  the  other 
congregation  for  what  they  choose  to  denominate  its 
heresis,  might  have  a  care  lest  others  visit  the  same  fate 
upon  their  head.  If  questions  of  orthodox  belief  must 
be  submitted  to  the  arbitrament  of  the  census,  every  one 
is  bound  to  concede  that  the  belief  in  miracles  is  an 
article  of  faith  in  modern  Israel.  Those  wlio  accept 
whatever  story  the  Bible  may  contain  as  literally  true, 
to  doubt  which  would  be  blasphemy,  exceed  in  numbers 
by  far  those  who  are  inclined  to  modify  this  literalism. 
We  shall  not  relinquish  our  right  to  think.  As  we  read 
the  story  of  our  religion's  gowth  we  believe  ourselves 
entitled  to  this  prerogative.  For  according  to  our  ap- 
prehension of  the  genius  of  Judaism  we  deem  lil)erty  of 
thought  its  distinguishing  and  vital  attribute.  Many  of 
the  greatest  of  its  teachers  have  exercised  this  privilege, 
and  have  thus  blazed  the  path  for  others  that  would 


tread  in  their  footsteps.  We  cannot  for  reasons  already 
explained  allow  tliat  niiracles_,  however  well  attested, 
prove  anything.  Our  belief  in  God  and  our  interpreta- 
tion, of  His  nature  is  of  too  high  an  order  and  too  rever- 
ent a  spirit  to  dethrone  him  and  make  him  the  occupant 
of  the  low  station  of  a  tinker.  His  creation  was  per- 
fect from  the  beginning,  his  laws  self-given,  adequate. 
Miracles  would  detract  from  his  majesty.  Their  ac- 
ceptance implies  less  of  God-belief  than  their  rejection. 
Wie,  therefore,  reject  them. 

But  we  are  withal  not  of  one  mind  with  the  numerous 
would-be  wise,  who  calmer  that  the  Bibilical  stories  are 
silhouettes  cut  out  by  men  of  nnsonnd  mind.  The  mar- 
velous representations  of  happenings  are  not  free  inven- 
tions. Xor  are-  they  reports  of  actual  occurrences  em- 
bellished wickedly  for  some  selfish  purpose  or  innocent- 
ly in  order  to  point  a  moral  lesson,  by  some  recorder  or 
deceiver.  Tiiis  is  indeed  the  view  of  rationalists  of 
whatever  variety.  Some  of  their  clan  have  thought  of 
saving  the  letter  of  the  story  by  disrobing  it  of  its 
poetry.  That  Moses  wrought  the  deeds  reported  of  him 
they  never  doubt.  He  turned  a  staff  into  a  serpent,  he 
divided  the  Eed  Sea,  he  smote  the  rock  and  drew  there- 
from water.  But,  say  they,  while  the  people  of  Pharoali 
were  misled  by  appearances  to  credit  him  with  super- 
natural powers,  and  therefore  were  induced  to  listen  to 
his  words,  in  reality  he  performed  his  tricks  in  a  per- 
fectly natural  manner.  His  staff  was  of  the  order  of 
prepared  tools  which  masters  of  the  art  of  sleight  of 
hand  know  how  to  handle  to  good  effect;  he  had  studied 
the  natural  ])henomena  of  Eg^'pt's  river;  he  had  ob- 
served that  at  a  definite  period  of  the  year  the  father 
of  the  country,  the  Xile,  carried  in  its  muddy  embrace 
large  quantities   of  the   red  sand   swept   from   off   the 

9 


Ahyssininn  iiioiiiitains,  and  relying  upon  this  annual 
now  of  ruddy  slime  lie  utilized  the  first  appearance 
tlure.-)!'  to  trii^lden  I'haroah  into  the  illusion  that  the 
i^ile's  waters  had  been  turned  into  blood.  Jacob  did 
rot  wrestle  with  an  angel,  no,  his  antagonist  in  that 
memorable  night  was  a  disguised  robber.  The  first- 
born in  Egypt  were  not  slain  by  the  angel  of  death  mak- 
ing his  saddening  rounds  at  the  unsprinkled  doors  of 
Pliaraoh's  subject,  no,  they  fell  a  victim  to  the  cruelty 
of  Arab  tribes  whom  Moses  had  hired  to  carry  out  his 
final  tlireat  hurled  into  the  stubborn  king's  teeth. 

In  this  wise,  rationalism  attempted  to  save  the  credi- 
bility of  the  Bible.     If  the  holy  writings  of  Israel  can 
( scape  rejection  as  historical  records  only  by  such  heroic 
treatment  as  this,  had  they  not  better  court  extinction  r 
They  would  certainly  save   their   dignity   and   that   of 
their  gi'eat  heroes.     Here  Moses  is'  reduced  to  the  role 
of  a  mountebank,  a  deceiver,  a  murderer.     What  asinine 
creatures  must  they  have  been  who  were  "taken  in"  by 
such  cheap  tricks  as  these.     Had  Pharoah  never  seen 
the  Nile  run  red  with  Abyssinian  sands?     If  Moses  had, 
the  king  certainly  had  observed  the  johenomenon  as  well. 
And  how  did  the  Arabs  know  in  their  pillaging  incur- 
sion which  of  the  inhabitants  happened  to  be  the  first- 
born?    Did  they  stop  to  insist  upon  seeing  the  birth 
certificate,  or   did  they  cross-examine  the  mothers   in 
order  t-o  establish  the  primogeniture  of  their  victim^? 
These  and  a  thousand  similar  questions  might  be  put  to 
show  how  bimglingly  the  rationalist  proceeds  to  save  the 
letter  of  the  Bible.  '  The  attitude  of  the  honest  believer 
is  at  least  reverential,  that  of  the  rationalist  frivolous 
bevond  sufferance.     Religion  and  the  Bible  both  migl^t 
exclaim:     ]\fay  a  good  Lord  preserve  us  against  such 

10 


friends,  of  our  enemies  we  shall  be  able  to  take  care  un- 
aided. 

Less  flippant  and  less  arrogant  than  this  species  of 
self-admiring  rationalists,  but  equally  unscholarly  and 
unbearable  is  that  variety  of  theirs  that  never  tires  of 
contending  that  with  intentions  of  either  a  good  or  an 
e\dl  kind  Moses  and  the  other  writers  of  the  Biblical 
accounts  misrepresented  as  marvelous,  simple  natural 
occurrences  though  they  knew  in  their  hearts  of  hearts 
that  their  description  did  not  do  justice  to  the  events. 
The  difference  between  this  and  the  former  set  of  ra- 
tionalists lies  in  the  admission  that  the  fraud  upon 
others  is  perpetrated  not  in  the  act  of  performance  so 
much  as  in  the  posterior  proclamation  thereof.  Never- 
theless  under  this  view  Moses  is  a  deceiver.  He  '^makes 
God  speak^'  and  ''leads  the  people  to  believe  that  God 
has  spoken/*'  when  he  knows  that  he  himself  is  the 
author  of  the  laws  which  he  has  proclaimed  as  divine. 
It  is  true  he  does  not  perform  his  circus  pranks  before 
Pharoah,  but  the  waiting  people  outside  are  told  by 
him  that  a  serpent  had  been  turned  into  a  staff  and  vice 
versa.  This  method  of  explaining  the  miracles  as  after- 
thoughts of  the  writers  who  report  them  has  very  justly 
lost  all  cast  and  standing  today  in  the  forum  of  science 
and  scholarship.  We  may  safely  leave  it  to  its  w'ell 
earned  rest.  In  Germany  no  seriously  minded  person 
will  do  it  so  much  honor  as  to  remember  it,  though  with 
us  now  and  then  a  fossil  of  this  extinct  order  may  ex- 
pose its  nudity  in  open  daylight. 

Still  another  sect  of  rationalists  deserves  a  passing 
word.  More  earnest  than  its  predecessors  along  these 
dusty  roads,  of  forced  interpretations  under  the  mis- 
taken belief  that  the  painful  effort  will  save  the  Bible 
and  also  do  justice  to  the  insistences  of  reason,  this  lat- 

11 


ter  day  variation  of  the  sciiool  imputes  no  imnnoral  or 
questionable  motives  to  the  Biblical  reporters.     It  would 
have  tlie  stories  pass  as  accounts  ol'  real  occurrences. 
But  what  of  the  miraculous  they  appear  to  carry,  is 
traced  to  the  occulf  treacheries  of  the  human  brain. 
Dreams,     hallucinations,     autohypnotic     processes    are 
charged  with  having  produced  the  effects  which  mould- 
ing the  temper  and  modifying  the  outlook  of  the  re- 
corder forced  his  pen  into  grooves  ignored  by  the  sober- 
minded.     The  voices  which  the  prophet  claims  to  have 
heard  were  in  so  far  real  as  he  in  his  state  of  exaltation 
actually  and  honestly  heard  them;  the  waters  actually 
oozed  out  of  tlie  rock,  but  the  intense  anxiety  of  the 
thirsting  people  blinded  their  eye  to  the  faet  that  Moses 
had  no  part  in  the  opening  of  the  hidden  spring.  From 
the  subjective  point  of  view  of  the  authors,  the  event 
took  place  exactly  as  they  described  it.     They  were  not 
false  to  the  truth  as  they  saw  it  when  they  ascribed  or- 
dinary happenings  to  the  intervention  of  supernatural 
power. 

It  requires  no  long  explanation  to  prove  that  this 
new  phase  of  rationalism  lias  caught  a  few  whiffs  of  the 
spirit  of  modern  methods  and  results.  Tlie  subjective 
element  certainly  has  played  a  part  in  the  coloring  of 
old  documents  and  their  contents.  The  prophetic 
idiosyncrasy  roots  to  a  large  extent  in  the  regions  of  the 
subconscious.  Nor  is  it  to  be  disputed  that  for  many 
of  the  Biblical  stories  there  is  the  basis  of  actual  faci. 
But  these  admissions  do  not  cover  the  whole  field. 
There  are  limitations  to  the  applicability  of  these  fac- 
tors. To  reduce  the  experience  of  Jonah  to  the  precipi- 
tate of  a  dream  will  neglect  the  palpable  certainty  that 
the  book  which  bears  the  prophet's  name  is  itself  a  par- 
able into  which  has  been  worked  one  of  the  class  of 

12 


legends  that  are  known  as  wanderers.  The  jewel  casket 
of  many  a  nation's  folklore  exhibits  thi«  very  gem ;  un- 
der many  a  clime  and  in  many  a  tongue  the  fable  is 
rehearsed'of  a  singer  or  sage  who  escaped  a  watery  grave 
by  the  kindness  of  a  finny  denizen  of  the  deep.  The 
framework  of  the  Biblical  story  deserves  no  greater 
credit  for  correspondence  with  an  actual  occurrence 
than  do  the  sister  saga's  of  other  climes.  And  if  mental 
processes  to  which  the  brain  lends  itself  in  moments  of 
intense  excitement  throw  all  the  light  which  we  desire 
and  can  get  on  the  mystery  of  the  prophetic  gift,  we  lose 
the  discriminating  moment  to  distinguish  the  true 
prophet  from  his  namesake  serving  Baal. 

The  seers  whose  words  have  aroused  the  ages  and  still 
have  not  ceased  stirring  the  conscience  of  even  our  day, 
drew  their  inexhaustible  power  indeed  from  other 
sources  than  the  potency  to  dream  or  to  invite  visions. 
Theirs  was  an  insight  not  so  much  into  the  hidden  mys- 
teries of  unexplored  nature  as  into  the  depths  of  human 
passion,  the  motives  of  humran  conduct,  the  relations 
that  should  subsist  between  man  and  man.  Theirs  was 
not  merely  the  wealth  of  subjective  illusions  frequent 
and  universal  indeed  in  the  days  when  the  lines  be- 
tween the  personal  and  the  impersonal,  the  natural  and 
the  supernatural  were  as  yet  not  definitely  established. 
Xo,  they  were  not  wonder-workers,  and  their 
message  depended  not  for  its  vital  importance 
upon  the  corroborating  testimony  of  uncanny 
and  weird  inversions  of  the  usual  sequence  of 
natural  happenings.  They  were  messengers  of 
righteousness,  their  burning  words  carried  in  their 
own  fire  the  credentials  of  a  truth  which  to  deny  implies 
the  denial  of  man's  dominant  and  central  position 
among  the  things  created.     Of  the  earlier  prophets, — 

13 


shadowy  outlinc^i  ol'  piisliiiio-  ciicrgies  in  days  of  stress 
and  strain  rather  tlian  warm-blooded  and  high-towerinjj 
personalities, — mi  rack's  are  indeed  recorded.  Elijah 
and  Elisha  anoear  in  the  annals  of  the  people's  tradi- 
tions cs  men  of  supreme  control  over  life  and  grave. 

To  rationalize  about  these  heroic  figures  will  not  save 
their  historic  character  while  it  will  reduce  to  weak 
prose  the  strong  poetry  of  their  biographies.  Nature 
hates  a  vacuum,  so  does  history.  The  vast  ranges  of 
time  of  wliicli  no  definite  person  can  be  made  the  spon- 
sor, centuries,  however  and  generally  under  the  strain 
of  ideas  and  conflicts  that  in  their  outcome  affect  mosc 
vitally  all  future  days,  tradition  loves  to  populate  with 
one  or  two  strong  individualities  in  whose  life  and  labor 
are  crystalized  tlie  aspirations  of  their  generation  tra- 
vailing in  tlie  birth-throis  of  the  nobler  faith.  Such  per- 
sonalities may  indeed  be  elaborations  of  actual  men  of 
flesh  and  blood  who  walked  and  worked  on  earth.  An 
Elijah  may  have  lived,  but  if  he  did  he  was  not  the 
giant,  the  figure  of  whom  popular  tradition  has  carvecl 
less  out  of  the  rude  stone  of  the  hero's  real  life  than  out 
of  the  finer  marble  of  the  how  nation's  and  the  new 
relision's  and  the  new  love's  incipient  strength  which 
during  the  period  covered  by  the  magnified  hero's  life 
began  to  take  form  and  assume  influence.  Such  fig- 
ures renresentjng  vital  movements  are  always  clothed 
by  popular  fancy  with  the  purple  of  supernatural  ruler- 
ship.  Israel's  chronicles  are  not  the  only  ones  that  ex- 
hibit this  tendency.  It  is  the  universal  phenomenon, 
in  Greece  and  Eome  no  less  than  in  India  and  tiu> 
Northlands. 

For  religion  and  certainly  for  our  religion  the  ques- 
tion of  the.  actuality  and  the  historicity  of  the  Biblical 
miracle^  and  the  Biblical  miracle  workers  is  inconse- 

14 


qucntial.  Eeligion  does  not  depend  upon  facts,  it  is  it- 
self the  stupendous  and  supreme  fact.  Even  if  mir- 
acles had  the  force  of  proving  the  divinity  of  him  who 
performs  them,  a  force  which  they  have  not,  Judaism 
abhorring  the  confusion  between  tlie  supremely  divine 
and  the  human  in  the  sense  that  God  has  ever  assumed 
body  and  form,  is  not  interested  in  the  vindication  of 
the  truth  as  history  of  whatever  report  of  miracles  the 
documents  contain.  Significant  in  this  connection  is 
the  catalogue  of  heresies  which  some  of  the  authorities 
of  rabbinical  theology  have  taken  pains  to  register.  In 
none  of  them  do  we  find  the  suggestion  that  rejection 
of  miracles  will  bar  the  way  to  the  enjoyments  of  hon- 
.ors  in  the  gift  of  the  religious  community. 

And  we  have  warrant  most  ample  for  the  proposition 
that  rabbinical  interpreters  were  exceedingly  free  in 
their  treatment  of  Biblical  miracles.  Maimonides  and 
others  insist  upon  the  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of 
creation  out  of  nothing,  the  recognition  of  prophecy,  or 
as  we  probably  might  say  revelation,  and  the  belief  in 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  The  first  and  the  last  in 
raljbinical  argiimentation  are  virtually  one.  The  God 
who  creates  by  the  power  of  his  word,  reason  the  doctors 
of  the  school,  has  certainly  the  power  to  recreate  the 
body  crumbled  into  dust.  A  study  of  Maimonides 
theory  of  prophecy  will  show  without  much  straining 
of  points  that  the  great  master  had  notions  which  are 
not  very  far  removed  from  naturalism,  certainly  much 
nearer  to  it  than  to  supernaturalism. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  our  theolog}-  has  pro- 
gressed beyond  that  of  ^laimonides  or  other  inediseval 
authorities.  We  have  no  scruple  to  reject  the  belief  In 
the  miracle  of  the  resurrection ;  our  doctrine  concerning 
creatio  ex  niliilo  is  a  postulate  of  our  concept  of  the 

15 


deity  and  not  the  outcome  of  our  belief  in  the  cos- 
niogeiiy  of  Genesis.  There  would  thus  remain  for  us 
only  t!ie  miracle  of  revelation  or  prophecy.  It  is  true 
in  our  pulpits  the  word  revelation  is  by  no  means  a 
stranger.  They  that  nse  it  are  doing  so  in  the  full 
knowledge  of  the  fact  tliat  they  connote  therewith  an 
idea  tuto  coelo  different  from  that  which  would  have  it 
stand  for  the  one  event  associated  in  Biblical  history 
Mith  Sinai.  Truth  is,  indeed,  not  of  the  dust.  He  who 
finds  it  feels  that  he  has  had  but  little  part  in  its  dis- 
covery. In  this  sense  the  word  revelation  may  apply 
without  too  mnch  violence  to  the  "unfolding  of  truth  in 
Israel  through  the  mediation  of  those  men  of  religiou^5 
genius  whom  we  have  come  to  designate  as  the  proph- 
ets. In  any  other  sense  however,  we  do  not  accept  the 
theory  that  religion  is  based  on  revelation.  How  so  -x 
cosmic  God  with  whom  to  associate  human  form  was 
even  declared  by  Maimonides  to  be  blasphemy  can  enter 
into  a  mechanical  commnnication  with  Moses  and 
descend  to  speak  with  him  on  earth  is  certainly  beyond 
the  liniiits  of  our  comprehension.  Tlie  ancient  philo- 
sophers of  Judaism  felt  this  difficulty.  The  possession 
of  a  voice  presupposes  the  existence  of  a  body  to  pro- 
duce sound.  God  having  no  body  can  have  no  voice. 
For  this  reason  it  was  assumed  that  the  channel  through 
wliich  God's  words  flowed  to  earth  was  a  voice  created 
especially  for  this  service. 

Eabbi  Jo.^e  (Sukkali  5,  a)  contends  that  Moses  never 
ascended  to  heaven  and  God  never  descended  to  earth. 
Though  in  the  sul)S(T(uent  halakhic  discussion  this 
statement  is  modified  to  prove  a  point  of  interest  in  the 
fixations  of  the  dimensions  of  the  ritually  correct  taber- 
nacle, the  boldness  of  the  teacher's  utterance  evidences 
the  flexible  character  of  the  doctrine  of  mechanical  rev- 

16 


lation.  And  none  can  be  blind  to  the  significance  of 
the  rabbinical  provision  against  the  adoption  of  what 
they  declared  areh-heresy,  the  doctrine  that  the  Decalo- 
gue had  the  sanction  of  revelation  in  a  higher  degree 
than  any  other  part  of  the  law.  (Berakhoth  12.) 
Revelation  as  a  nTechanical  process  would  indeed  be  a 
miracle  and  as  such  as  ineffective  to  prove  truth  as  any 
other  marvelous  occurrence.  If  the  human  mind  is 
able  to  grasp  the  truth  revealed,  revelation  is  unneces- 
sary ;  if  the  human  mind  lacks  this  power,  revelation  is 
to  no  purpose.  Pedagogical  psychology  understands 
full  Aveli  that  instruction  to  be  elective  can  only  con- 
sist in  rational  guidance  of  the  productive  functions  of 
the  mind.  Wliat  the  mind  is  unable  to  produce  no 
teaching  can  impart.  It  might  as  well  be  mere  sound 
and  will  have  as  much  power  to  affect  men  and  their 
conduct  as  n^ere  sound  would  have.  Biblical  history 
corroborates  this  experience  of  sound  pedagog}'.  Israel 
moulds  the  golden  calf  immediately  after  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  second  commandment.  For  all  practical 
purposes  Sinai  might  liave  remained  silent.  Lessing's 
view  of  the  function  of  revelation  as  an  accelerated  pro- 
cess of  origination  through  instruction  might  save  the 
general  doctrine  if  we  were  not  constrained  to  ask  whac 
the  Sinaitic  revelation  contained  that  had  not  been 
known  before  its  occurrence,  or  that  somie  other  nations 
though  not  the  recipients  of  the  divine  message  from 
on  high  were  left  in  ignorance  of. 

Abraham,  if  we  must  believe  the  Biblical  documents, 
was  a  monotheist ;  so  was  Moses.  The  great  patriarch's 
monotheism  is  reorarded  by  the  rabbinical  authorities  as 
the  outflow  of  his  own  reasoning.  (Maimonides  Hilk- 
hoth  Akkum  I,  3.)  If  he  could  arrive  at  this  truth 
without  mechanical  revelation,  why  should   others   re- 

17 


(jiiiri'  the  supernatural  instruction?  The  Greek  think- 
ers aud  writers  of  the  fonrtli  century  are  clearly  entitled 
to  be  classed  among  monotheists.  Confucius  empha- 
sized the  moral  })reee])ts  contained  in  the  two  tables  as 
strenuously  as  they  did^  and  so  did  the  Egyptian  book 
of  the  dead.  It  would  then  appear  that  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  Decalogue  on  Sinai  was,  as  far  as  the  people 
to  whom  it  was  addressed  were  concerned,  bootless,  and 
as  far  as  ^other  nations  come  into  consideration,  a  work 
of  su})erarrogation.  And  which  of  the  versions  of  the 
Decalogue  w'as  the  one  which  threw  the  mountain  into 
s]3asms?  Can  we  seriously  take  refuge  in  the  assump- 
tion that  tlie  fourth  commandment  was  in  its  two-fold 
form  ])roelaimed  in  the  one  and  the  same  breath? 

It  has  been  argued  that  upon  the  Decalogue  as  re- 
vealed rest  the  notions  of  rigM  wdiich  civilization  has 
everywhere  adopted  and  .which  will  dissolve  at  once 
should  we  conclude  that  Moses  did  not  receive  the  two 
tables  in  tlie  manner  outlined  in  holy  Scripture.  This 
argument  is  the  w^eakest  of  the  many  weak  ones  to 
bolster  up  an  untenable  because  irrational  theory.  The 
Biblical  account  of  the  first  murder  assumes  that  Cain 
feels  his  guilt.  Without  revelation  he  was  aware  of  the 
crime  involved  in  his  act.  The  "sons  of  Noah"  are  cer- 
tninlv  before  the  proclamation  of  the  Sinaitic  law  by 
all  ral)binical  theologians  re])resented  as  under  moral 
obligations.  An  original  revelation  to  Adam  cajmot  be 
read  into  the  Biblical  texts.  (Confer  against  Sanhe- 
drin  56  b.  Na'hmanides  on  Lev.  XVIII.)  The  Romans 
had  a  clear  and  comprehensive  "Rechtsbegriif"  though 
they  did  not  know  of  the  (hypothetical)  existence  of 
the  Cod-given  law.  And  moreover  are  the  principles 
of  right  enunciated  in  the  Decalogue  not  barely  formal 
and  rudimentary?     Thou  shalt  not  murder,  gives  us  no 

18 


information  on  what  the  law  covers.  Savage  tribes 
may  also  accept  the  principle  but  construe  it  to  have  no 
ap^'licability  to  the  n^ember  of  a  foreign  community. 
In  fact  the  Pentateuch  itself  is  forced  to  reckon  with 
the  institution  of  blood  revenge.  The  bare  enunciation 
of  this  law  does  not  furnish  us  a  sufficient  basis  of  right. 
Xor  does  the  Decalogue  tell  us  what  property  is;  it 
leaves  us  in  the  lurch  when  We  would  know  what  to  con- 
sider adultery.  Polygamy  flourished  after  the  procla- 
n:ation  of  the  Decalogue;  fhis  is  proof  that  the  empty 
prohibition  of  adultery  was  very  far  from  spreading  the 
foundations  of  absolute  law  which  is,  we  suppose,  what 
Dr.  Wise  means  when  speaking  of  the  "Rechtsbegriff.'' 

Or  shall  we  restrict  our  view  of  revelation  to  the 
operation  of  the  divine  element  in  the  prophets  ?  Con- 
sulting the  Talmudic  authorities  one  cannot  but  hold 
th-.t  these  teachers  of  our  religion  allowed  a  wide  latitude 
of  opinion  on  this  moot  point.  The  personal  character 
of  the  recipient  of  prophetic  power  is  by  no  means  a 
negative  factor.  Purity'  of  life,  fear  of  sin  are  said  to 
lead  to  the  outpouring" of  the  "holy  spirit.''  (J.  Sab- 
bath I,  3 ;  Shir  ha-Sltirim  Piabba  editio  155-i,  3  a.) 
Teachers  of  the  Torah  are  credited  with  the  possession 
of  the  holy  spirit.  That  the  individual  disposition  and 
conditions^  of  the  prophets  modify  the  manifestations  of 
this  "divine  element"  is  a  ready  concession  in  rabbinical 
exegesis.  (Confer  Sanhedrin  89.  a:  'Hagiga  13,  b.) 
'Men  like  Eabbi  'Helbo,  reporting  an  utterance  of  Pi. 
Jochanan.  and  P.  Simeon  b.  Lakish.  had  no  very  high 
opinion  of  prophecy,  and,  in  fact,  wisdom  was  consid- 
ered to  represent  a  higher  stage  of  religious  illumina- 
tion than  the  prophetic  vision.  (Midra^h  Ekha  Pabba: 
Sabbath  119,  b.) 

In  accordance  with  Biblical  precedent  Moses  is  as- 

19 


signed  au  exceptional  station  among  the  prophets  by 
the  rabbis.  And  yet  when  we  analyze  their  views  on  the 
channels  through  which  Moses  received  tlie  revealing 
message,  we  cannot  but  conclude  tliat  they  inclined  very 
stroiigly  to  the  opinion  that  liis  own  mind  was  the  con- 
stituting and  determinating  factor  of  the  revelation  of 
wliich  he  was  the  mouth-piece.  '  (Maimonides,  Yesodhe 
Hattorah  Yli,  G;  Ibn  Esra  to  N'um.  VII;  Siphri  to 
Lev.  1,1). 

As  Judaism  never  accepted  Tertullian's  credible  est 
quia  ineptum  est,  the  miracle  of  revelation  even  cannot 
be  elevated  to  a  plane  higher  than  that  to  be  assigned  to 
otliCTS.  Truth  is  truth  no  matter  how  enunciated,  when 
and  wliere  and  by  whom.  Twice  two  equals  four,  no 
divine  voice  can  change  the  result  or  lend  additional 
verity  to  the  statement.  That  the  square  erected  on  the 
hypotenuse  of  a  right-angled  triangle  equals  the  sum  of 
squares  of  the  other  two  sides  remains  true  without  rev- 
elation and  cannot  be  vitialed  by  never  so  solemn  a 
divine  ]n'oclanmtion  of  the  contrary. 

I>ight  is  right  under  all  circumstances,  and  if  man  is 
unable  to  distinguish  between  right  and  wrong  without 
revelation  he  will  be  as  incompetent  after  its  interven- 
tion. For  the  human  mind  can  only  act  upon  motives 
which  lie  within  the  sphere  of  its  own  cognition.  Such 
motives  and  the  standards  by  which  to  judge  them  the 
human  mind  can  either  always  grasp  of  its  own 
strength,  or  it  cannot  grasp  them  at  all,  and  in  this 
case  not  act  upon  them.  Kor  can  God  be  proven  by 
revelation.  Either  the  God-idea  lies  within  the  range 
of  the  human  mind's  possibilities,. and  then  revelation  is 
unnecessarv,  or  it  does  not,  and  then  revelation  will  not 
bring  us  one  inch  nearer  to  ifs  comprehension  so  as  to 
make  it  a  vital  force  in  our  life  and  thought. 

20 


Moreover^  if  miracles  prove  truth,  every  form  of  re- 
ligion is  by  virtue  of  such  corroboration  entitled  to  ()e 
held  true.  For  every  religion  claims  by  its  documents, 
or  in  the  belief  of  its  devotees,  to  be  of  divine  origin. 
Of  every  religious  teacher  the  working  of  miracles  is 
recorded.  And  these  are  as  well  authenticated  as  are 
those  of  which  the*  Bible  has  the  record,  Moses  and 
Jesus,  Mohammed  and  Buddah,  not  to  mention  others, 
are  credited  with  the  performance  of  identical  opera- 
tions. To  say  that  those  remembered  of  Moses  are 
more  trustworthy  than  others  is  not  admissible.  For 
recent  literary  researches  in  the  history  of  religious 
tradition  have  established  beyond  the  possibility  of  cavil 
the  fact  that  none  of  the  Old  Testament  historical  books 
are  the  children  of  the  times  of  which  they  purport  to 
give  us  a  detailed  account.  Even  if  we  would  agree  to 
the  proposition  of  Maimonides  that  the  miracles 
wrought  by  Moses  are  in  so  far  more  credible  than  those 
of  the  prophets  after  him,  since  they  were  performed  in 
the  plain  sight  of  eye-witnesses,  we,  should  have  to  re- 
linquish the  argument  in  view  of  the  indisputable  cir- 
cumstance that  none  of  our  documents  is  contemporane- 
ous with  the  men  supposed  to  have  been  eye-witnesses. 

Judaism  as  a  religion  has  no  concern  with  the  efforts 
to  save  as  authentic  the  Biblical  stories.  We  may 
without  fear  of  endangering  the  foundations  of  our 
faith  subject  the  old  documents,  children  of  religion 
and  not  its  parents,  as  as  they  are,  to  the  processes  of 
analysis  which  furnish  us  an  insight  into  the  architec- 
ture and  character  of  the  Homeric  poems  or  the  Vedic 
hymns  or  the  composition  of.  the  Koran.  Tinder  the 
lens  of  the  critic,  miracle  will  appear  to  belong  to  the 
region  of  myth. 

21 


S;)y.s  Dr.  Eiiiliorn,  ''The  miracles  which  the  Biblical 
books  describe  as  far  as  tliey  are  not  memories  of  nat- 
ural occurrences  belong  to  tlie  territory  of  legend.  (Ner 
■  Tamid,  \).  37.)"  Myth,  said  Plegel,  is  of  all  true  state- 
ments 0/  truth  tlic  truest.  If  it  docs  not  tell  us  what 
has  happened,  it  informs  us  what  should  have  hap- 
pened, if  certain  princi[)les  are  the  detenninants  of  the 
univ.erse.  With  but  slight  modification  we  may  admit 
this  dictum  of  tlie  bold  German  dialectician.  Indeed, 
they  are  strangers  even  in  the  anti-chaml)er  of  the  hu- 
man souFs  workshop  who  believe  that  myth  and  untruth 
are  exchangeable  terms.  No  myth  is  a  free  invention 
unless  it  be  of  that  class  of  myths  which  are  called 
secondary.  Whenever  a  myth  is  the  original  outburst  of 
a  people's  thought,  it  is  the  irresistible  utterance  of  the 
people's  p^oetic  apperception  of  the  events  which  it  esti- 
m.ates  to  be  of  vital  import  in  iTs  own  destiny;  when  it 
recites  the  story  of  a  personal  life,  as  often  it  does,  it 
is  the  reflection  of  the  people's  Highest  ambitions,  or  the 
reconstruction  of  its  own  life  in  the  form  of  an  indi- 
vidual trial  or  triumph. 

The  myths  or  miracles  in  tlie  New  Testament  are 
indeed,  to  a  great  extent,  secondary  or  derivative.  That 
Elijah  and  Moses  are  virtually  one  and  the  same  per- 
sonal precipitate  of  the  nation's  reconstructive  poetry, 
of  the  nation's  constructive  period,  the  Talmudists  have 
already  detected.  They  enumerate  nearly  one  hundred 
similarities  of  event  and  performance  in  the  recorded 
biographies  of  these  two  pioneer  prophets.  And,  in- 
deed, both  figures  are  the  Incarnation  of  the  struggles 
which  the  nation  underwent  in  its  slow  advance  from 
tribal  henotheism  and  Canaanitish  polytheism  to  a  more 
refined  and  ethical  YahAvism.  €!armel  and  Sinai  are 
both  the  local  background  and  the  foci  of  that  contest. 

22 


Xo  AYonder,  then,  that  the  miracles  told  of  one  in  some 
form  or  another  are  woven  info  the  life  of  the  other. 
In  the  biography  of  these  two  men  we  are  confronted 
with  the  spontaneous  production  of  the  mythopoetic 
creative  faculty  of  the  nation.  It  is  the  people,  inquir- 
ing into  it^  own  history  and  destiny,  that  presides  at 
the  loom  on  which  the  miraculous .  thread  and  web  is 
spuii.  Xot  so  in  the  gospels.  Here  the  artificiality  ol; 
the  method  is  at  once  apparent.  The  purpose  to  consti- 
tute the  Xazarene  the  greater  Moses  and  Elijah  is 
patent.  Every  miracle  wrought  by  Amram's  son  is 
also  performed  by  Mary's  child,  but  always  in  a  height- 
ened degree. 

Leaving  to  one  side  these  secondary  miracles  or  myths 
we  shall  'find  in  tlie  Old  Testament  representatives  of 
every  variety  of  myth  that  we  have  discovered  in  our 
study  of  non-Biblical  folk-poetry  or  literature.  Let  us 
not  he  afraid  of  placing  our  Bible  into  this  company 
where  to  be  is  its  hy  right  of  similarity  of  origin  and 
method  of  composition  and  compilation.  The  Bible  is 
literature,  the  literature  of  a  highly  gifted  people; 
literature  covering  a  millenium  reflecting  the  various 
moods  of  the  national  soul  and  preserving  the  succes- 
sive stages  of  its  sponsors'  development  and  growth  into 
the  realization  of  their  national  dower  and  destiny.  As 
such  literature  of  an  ancient  people  the  Bible  cannot  be 
expected  to  be  the  text-hook  of  geology  or  astronomy 
or  to  have  anticipated  the  discoveries  in  our  physical 
or  physiological  laboratories.  It  is  not  even  a  manual 
of  historv' ;  for  the  ancient  nations  did  not  write  history 
as  we  do.  But  as  such  literature  it  has  a  value  which 
no  other  estimate  of  its  character  can  confer  upon  it. 
The  soul  of  its  parent-people  glows  in  every  line  thereof. 
From  that  soul  was  mined  the  gold  of  the  passion  for 


9f> 


righteousness  which  is  tlio  Leitmotif  of  iU  mature  mes- 
sage to  the  work!,  a  message  which  has  aroused  the  zones 
to  joyful  echo  and  is  toda}',  as  it  was  of  old,  the  tonic 
chord  in  tlic  faitli  of  humanity's  hest  and  purest. 

If  this  literature  frames  myths  which  as  records  of 
actual  events  we  shall  not  accept,  its  value  is  thereby 
not  impaired.  Its  very  myths  breathe  the  spirit  which 
has  enkindled  with  life  its  every  note. 

Of  nature-myths  we  find  but  a  limited  number  in  this 
literature.  The  book  of  Job  and  one  or  the  other  psalm 
show  traces  of  their  currency  among  the  Hebrews.  But 
we  have  a  .soodly  representation  of  what  is  denoted  as 
culture-mytlis.  The  change  from  the  civilization  of 
the  hunter  to  the  superior  conditions  of  the  Nomad's 
pursuits  is  enclosed  in  the  relation  between  Essau,  the 
starving  huntersman,  and  Jacob,  the  shepherd,  who  is 
well  warded  against  hunger.  The  transformation  of 
the  shepherd  into  a  farmer,  successful  only  after  re- 
peated abortive  efforts  comes  to  light  in  the  story  of 
Abel's  murder  at  the  hands  of  Cain.  Tribal  qualities 
and  antipathies  liave  also  informed  many  an  incident. 
Is  not  Jacob  the  typical  shrewd  Semitic  shepherd?  And 
is  not  Abraham  the  incarnation  of  another  and  nobler 
type  still  now  found  in  the  black  tents  of  the  Bedouin? 
The  migrations  of  the  patriarchs  are  personified  move- 
ments of  clans.  They  are  credited  with  erecting  altars 
which  enjoyed  high  repute  among  the  people  even  in 
days  when  the  stricter  Yahwism  of  later  development 
would  question  the  legitimacy  of  these  ancient  shrines. 
Moab  and  Amnion,  arch-enemies  of  the  sons  of  Israel, 
are  charged  by  tribal  myth  with  incestuous  origin. 
Now  it  is  a  name  that  no  longer  understood  gives  rise 
to  a  story;  anon  it  is  a  verse  of  some  ditty  or  rhyme 

24 


come  down  the  ages  that  evokes  the  explanatory  event. 
Samson's  life  teems  with  incidents  of  this  kind. 

A  festival  which  has  gro^Ti  up  naturally  and  has  in 
its  development  from  a  pastoral  feast  into  a  day  appeal- 
ing through  a  changed  ritual  to  an  agricultural  people, 
kept. pace  with  the  evolution  of  the  nation's  culture 
would  be  connected  with  an  important  and  decisive 
crisis  in  the  history  of  the  clans.  And  spontaneously 
the  mythopoetic  faculty  responds  to  the  impulse.  Ad- 
vancins:  civilization  does  not  blur  the  memory  of  the 
ruder  habits  and  rites  of  former  days,  a  strange  cus- 
tom or  festal  song  has,  perhaps,  served  to  fix  the  former 
practice  in  the  economy  of  certain  localities.  What 
may  have  been  the  provoking  event?  Jephta's  daugh- 
ter's fate  illustrates  in  its  composite  character  of  the 
therewith  associated  story  this  class  of  myths.  It 
would  account  for  a  rh^mie  and  a  festival  dear  to  thei 
maidens  of  the  district  and  in  so  doing  fossilizes  the  old 
rite  of  human  sacrifice  and  even  weaves  into  the  many- 
threaded  nattern  of  its  tradition  one  of  the  wanderins: 
legends,  the  Hebrew  counterpart  to  the  Greek  of  Iphi- 
genia.  And  is  Samson  not  also  of  this  order,  the  He- 
brew Hercules,  the  sun-hero?  Does  not  proverb  and 
rhyme  and  name  furnish  the  irritant  for  the  free  ac- 
tivity of  the  myth-weaving  fancy  in  stories  illustrative 
of  the  life  and  the  labors  of  the  forebears?  Locality  is 
also  a  fertile  source.  The  bleak  and  desolate  region  of 
the  "Dead  Sea  challenges  the  harmonizing  propensities 
of  folk-fancy. 

Every  nation  unrlei"  GocVr  snn  has  so  accounted  for 
desolate  wastes.  Let  no  one  reck  them  recollections  of 
great  geolodcal  cataclysms.  Yiueta  is  the  Baltic  ver- 
sion of  Sodom  and  Gomorrha.  This  fancv  is  free  of 
the  burden   of  complying  with  nature's  rigid  inflexi- 

25 


l)ilit\-.  When  it  was  in  its  prime  and  therefore  most 
lirochictivo,  it  looked  upon  nature  as  a  congeries  of  per- 
sonal volitions,  unhampered  by  such  laws  as  we  have  de- 
tected to  liold  stars  and  stones  and  rocks  and  rivers  un- 
der impartial  dominion.  Animals  speak,  and  why 
sliould  tlicy  not?  A  generation  but  little  removed  from 
tlie  influences  of  the  Totem  age  could  not  feel  the  difh- 
eultics  therein  involved.  The  medicinal  value  of  ii 
hniss  serpent,  the  curative  effect  of  representative  gold 
mice  and  bubos  are  precipitates  of  the  Totem  age  and 
the  reflection  of  its  convictions.  Fairy  tales  also  have 
deputies  in  this  congress  of  myths.  Elisha's  bear  de- 
vouring tlie  mocking  cliildren  is  of  one  of  these.  That 
myth  is  often  faithful  to  local  coloring,  as  for  instance 
in  the  description  of  the  Egyptian  plagues,  need  not  as- 
tonish us.  Poetry  mixes  its  colors  very  frequently  m 
accordance  with  the  pattern  which  nature  furnishes. 
He  who  wrote  the  epos  of  the  Exodus  or  reduced  it  to 
written  form  was  not  ignorant  of  Egypt's  circum- 
stances. His  systematic  disquisition,  however,  bears  the 
earmarks  of  having  been  worked  out  in  the  solitude  of 
his  study,  his  intention  is  clearly  to  controvert  the  theo- 
logy of  the  Pharaoh's;  he  gives  us  neither  history  nor 
mythology,  but  theology. 

But  I  must  hasten  to  the  conclusion.  One  word  has 
to  be  said  which  often  is  neglected.  Underneath  this 
mythology  of  the  Bible  pulsates  still  another  force.  The 
Midrasldr  method  lias  inspirited  the  Bible.  Originally 
the  spontaneous  outpouring  of  unconcerned  national 
reminiscences  and  ambitions,  the  literature  of  Israel 
passed  at  a  later  epoch  tlirough  a  reconstructive  pro- 
cess. In  this  W'ay  its  contents  were  enriched  with  the 
added  significance  of  being  witnesses  to  the  universal 
reign  of  those  principles  of  righteousness  which  con- 

26 


stitute  the  burden  of  Israel's  message  to  the  ages.  Al- 
most every  life  and  every  story  was  re-adjusted  to  the 
demands  of  this  higher  outlook.  Israel  had  become  at 
last  the  people  of  priests,  the  one  nation  reading  its  na- 
tional duty  in  terms  of  service  to  the  one  God,  a  service 
which  demanded  obedience  and  love,  not  sacrifices.  The 
Bible  was  heis^htened  from  literature  into  the  book  of 
religious  instruction. 

Every  stage  of  the  nation's  growth  into  and  toward 
the  light  had  left  its  imprint  upon  the  manner  and 
matter  of  popular  tradition.  This  final  climax  recast 
the  material  once  more.  And  the  later  Midrash  fol- 
lowed in  the  footsteps  of  the  Biblical  Midrash.  How 
beautifully,  for  instance,  is  the  story  of  Israel's  wander- 
ing in  the  desert  applied  in  the  homilies  of  the  rabbis. 
The  story  of  the  divine  protection  and  guidance  by  a 
pillar  of  fire  at  night  and  a  cloud  by  day,  is  undoubtedly 
the  offspring  of  the  method  employed  by  the  tramping 
tribes  to  beacon  the  direction  to  the  long  drawn  column, 
^lodern  writers  on  the  marching  arrangements  of  the 
pilgrim  lines  on  their  way  to  ]\[ecca  have  recalled  the 
Biblical  scene.  The  Mannah,  too,  has  for  its  basis  the 
occurrence  of  a  resinous  shrub  in  the  peninsula  and  the 
burning  bush  of  Moses  holds  for  its  nucleus  of  fact  the 
existence  of  another  shrub  native  to  those  regions.  But 
both  Bible  and  Midrash  have  done  better  than  to  dwell 
upon  these  germs  and  to  point  to  them  in  proof  of  the 
veracity  of  their  records.  They  have  made  the  miracle 
the  vehicle  of  moral  instruction,  a  new  and  nobler 
poetry  built  on  the  old. 

The  prose  of  the  camp-lights,  or  the  moving  cloud  of 
dust,  or  of  the  secretions  of  a  tree,  or  the  fiery  blossoms 
of  a  shrub  or  the  roar  of  the  volcano,  ancient  seat  and 
center  of  tribal  worsliip,  has  been  transformed  into  th;.- 

27 


])cal  of  God's  ovm  voice,  into  lessons  of  divine  guidance 
and  human  trust  which  are  true  forever.  This  truth 
we  cherish.  It  needs  no  confirmation  by  miracles,  it  is 
its  own  recorded  witness,  its  own  prophet  and  revelation. 
The  pages  of  the  unfolding  centuries  are  a  scroll  con- 
tinuous, each  line  of  which  echoes  the  one  thought  of 
everv  miracle  turned  into  a  Midrash: — God  reigneth, 
his  dominion  embraces  all  the  worlds  and  is  without 
end.  This  faith  will  not  parent  miracles.  It  had 
found  its  voice  l^efore  Sinai  was  believed  to  have  thun- 
dered and  should  Sinai  cease  to  be  awful  as  the  theater 
of  theophanies  it  would  still  ring  on. 

Myth  or  miracle  for  this  confidence  in  the  essential 
righteousness  of  the  universe  and  the  duty  of  mlan  to 
strive  after  righteousness  are  indifferent  alternatives. 
Before  the  forum  of  literature  and  scholarship  miracle 
belongs  to  the  realm  of  myth  but  religion,  our  religion 
spurns  tl  e  crutches  of  a  more  limited  assurance,  it  re- 
je  ts  tlie  belief  in  miracles  not  because  it  would  have 
less  of  God,  no,  because  it  has  more  of  him.  God's  law 
is  not  in  heaven,  it  is  not  beyond  the  sea,  but  in  our 
mouth  and  our  heart  to  do  it. 


The    Place   of  the    Individual   in 
Organized   Charity. 

This  house  has  often  received  distinction  by  the  pres- 
ence of  men  and  women  come  together  under  the 
sacred  impulse  for  earnest  words  and  work.  Rarely, 
however,  has  a  gathering  claimed  the  hospitality  and 
inspiration  of  this  Temple  which  we  knew  to  have  a 
stronger  claim  u^^on  our  recognition  and  sympathy 
than  your  conference.  The  fact  that  busy  men  and  much 
engaged  women  will  leave  their  desks  or  lay  aside  other 
duties  and  will  pilgrim  in  these  days  of  summer  discom- 
fort to  a  city  not  their  own  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
and  receiving  counsel  and  exchanging  experiences  bear- 
ing on  the  improvement  and  enlargement  of  methods 
and  means  in  philanthropic  endeavors,  is  in  itself  an 
omen  of  good  results  and  augurs  well  for  the  spirit  dom- 
inant among  those  that  guard  the  interests  of  Judaism 
and  its  professors  in  our  beloved  country.  Like  you,  so 
have  the  members  of  Sinai  Congregation  no  anxiety 
more  pressing  than  through  religion  to  learn  how  to 
vitalize  theory  into  practice.  The  subjects  which  your 
papers  discussed  with  such  breadth  of  solicitude  and 
depth  of  intelligence  have  at  other  times  not  been  ex- 
cluded from  the  privileges  of  this  pulpit.  Years  ago, 
indeed,  this  congregation  shared  with  many  of  her  sis- 
ters, the  prejudice  that  religion  stood  in  no  relation  to 


the  eflforts  aiming  at  the  amelioration  of  social  condi- 
tions. Today  there  is  no  member,  I  dare  say,  who  knows 
of  Sinai's  convictions  but  understands  that  the  social 
^perplexities  troubling  our  generation  are  fundament- 
ally religious  problems.  They  vibrate  with  the  appeals, 
the  regrets  and  the  remorses  of  an  aroused  social  con- 
science and  it  was  this  conscience  which  the  prophets 
of  old  stepped  forth  to  awaken  from  lethargy  and  irre- 
sponsiveness  fostered  under  an  idolatry  to  false  gods 
and  ideals.  Judaism  certainly  has  among  its  sanctities 
none  that  may  outvalue  its  insistence  upon  man's  call 
to  be  his  fellowman's  keeper. 

Nevertheless,  though  an  humble  teacher  of  this  pro- 
phetic Judaism,  I  should  never  of  my  own  free  choice 
have  presumed  to  address  you,  the  officers  and  dele- 
gates of  this  conference,  had  your  own  generous  invita- 
tion not  conferred  upon  me  the  precious  prerogative  of 
craving  an  audience  for  my  faltering  words.  Experts 
alone  should  demand  a  hearing  in  an  assembly  of  this 
order.  Certain  it  is  none  other  is  justified  to  pretend  to 
the  censor's  and  the  critic's  part.  Perhaps  the  consid- 
eration that  I  have  had  the  advantages  of  a  modern 
theological  schooling  in  which  sociology  is  almost  focal, 
has  emboldened  those  who  arranged  your  suggestive 
program  to  venture  upon  the  always  risky  experiment 
of  assigning  me  a  place  among  the  designated  speakers. 
Conscious  of  the  obligations  which  this  confidence  en- 
tails, I  am  encouraged  to  repress  all  timidity  by  the 
reflection  that  in  this  city,  if  nowhere  else,  congrega- 
tions have  been  forced   to  lay  aside  the  altogether  too 


common  prejudice  which  will  hold  the  rabbi,  through 
the  infection  of  his  profession,  to  be  always  w^oefully 
lacking  in  common  sense  and  always  deficient  in  those 
capabilities  which  enable  one  to  grasp  propositions  and 
convictions  with  a  view  to  their  practicability.  If  this 
prevalent  misconception  of  rabbinical,  congenital  or  ac- 
quired obliquity  were  supported  by  reality,  no  preacher's 
voice  should  be  raised  in  a  gathering  asking  for  light  on 
such  grave  matters  as  have  been  under  discussion  this 
day.  For  they  are  by  no  means  theoretical  subtilities. 
Beyond  what  academic  attraction  they  own,  they  have 
an  incisive  connection  with  hard  and  stubborn  practice. 
But  then  modern  theology,  too,  has  been  impressed 
with  the  solemnities  of  the  practical  things.  The  poles 
at  w^hich  its  spark  leaps  out  are  not  in  the  misty  be- 
yond, but  in  the  impressive  now  and  pushing  here. 
Thus  it  has  always  been  in  .Judaism.  Our  religion 
never  recognized  the  divorcement  of  practice  from 
theory,  of  the  secular  relations  and  responsibilities  from 
the  sacred  Our  theology  has  always  been  sociological 
in  intent  and  practical  in  purpose.  The  modern  theo- 
logian who  has  come  to  understand  the  true  aspects  of 
his  profession  and  has  earnestly  striven  to  prepare  him- 
self for  its  responsibilities  does  therefore  not  a  iwiori 
fall  under  the  ban  which  excludes  amateurs,  be  their 
intentions  never  so  noble,  from  the  field. 

The  day  for  amateurs  is  past.  In  all  the  varied  hu- 
man activities,  the  call  is  for  experts.  Life  has  become 
so  intense  in  all  of  its  departments  and  so  dreadfully  in 
earnest  in  all  of  its  conflicts  and  conditions  that  only 


one  guided  by  expert  knowledge  and  fortified  by  deli- 
cately tempered  elasticity  of  ex})erimental  wisdom,  may 
hope  to  be  of  use  to  himself  and  to  others. 

Expert  knowledge  is  by  its  very  nature  restricted, 
departmental  knowledge.  Specialisation  is  therefore 
the  characteristic  bent  and  necessity  of  our  age.  En- 
cyclopedic and  ecumenical  science  is  denied  us  even  in 
the  one  branch  of  human  activities  to  which  we  have 
wedded  our  destiny  and  pledged  our  duty.  A  few  de- 
cades ago  every  good  physician  could  with  good  con- 
science give  advice  on  every  ailment  that  presented  its 
horrors  or  tortures  to  his  well-disciplined  eye.  Now, 
one  who  would  pretend  to  such  universal  information 
would  forfeit  the  confidence  of  his  patrons.  The  di- 
ploma may  still  name  him  Doctor  of  universal  medi- 
cal science;  but  in  stern  and  sober  reality  only  a  few 
counties  of  a  small  province  of  medicine's  wide  domain 
are  absolutely  and  scientifically  familiar  to  his  trained 
and  expert  mind.  And  the  same  is  true  in  all  other 
w^alks  of  life.  Encyclopedic  knowledge  and  ability  are 
today  onl}^  the  property  of  high-school  graduates  and 
even  they  learn  to  modify  their  estimate  a  few  weeks 
after  the  close  of  their  school  quadriennium.  Business 
illustrates  this  phenomenon  as  strongly  as  ever  do  the 
liberal  professions.  Everything  is  departmentalized 
and  specialized.  On  all  sides  we  are  confronted  with 
division  of  labor  carried  to  its  furthest  point  and  a  cor- 
responding restriction  in  freedom  and  breadth  of  scope. 
This  in  turn  has  led  to  a  stronger  organization  of  the 
vital  forces,  with  a  view  to  correcting  the  one-sidedness 


incidental  to  specialisation  and  broadening  again  in  the 
results  the  current  of  life  dammed  back  and  dyked  in 
the  initiatory  flow  and  carrying  force.  Interdependence 
and  association  play  a  part  in  the  economy  of  human 
life  in  a  degree  and  intensity  as  never  before.  The 
whole  world  of  commerce,  industry  and  thought  and 
aspiration  is  under  its  spell.  Books  of  exceedingly 
great  importance  to  scholar  and  investigator  have  ceased 
to  be  written  by  one  or  the  other  of  earth's  greatest. 
Those  that  today  demand  the  hospitality  of  our  libraries' 
shelves  and  admittance  to  the  sanctum  of  the  studious 
searcher  and  thinker,  are  the  children  of  many  parents 
co-operating,  each  bringing  his  own  specialised  science 
to  the  common  altar.  The  department  store  with  its 
possibilities  of  evil  and  its  power  for  good  has  its  coun- 
terpart in  the  co-operative  expeditions  and  researches 
for  which  nations  even  are  asked  to  stand  sponsors. 

Association  in  philanthropy,  now  the  shibboleth 
under  all  skies,  is  under  the  same  law  and  is  expressive 
of  the  same  prevalent  tendency  and  recognized  neces- 
sit^^  Division  of  effort,  if  uncorrected,  leads  to  waste 
of  energy  and  increase  of  ineffectiv-e  outlay.  Its  anti- 
dote is  offered  in  the  comprehensive  scheme  of  co-oi^era- 
tion  and  association. 

The  evil  of  specialisation  and  the  loss  which  is  inci- 
dental to  it,  which  is  in  fact  the  price  which  we  pay  for 
increased  effectiveness  in  doing  a  very  small  thing  but 
doing  it  profoundly  well,  have  furnished  pretext  for 
many  a  highly  impassioned  protest.  Becoming  this  or 
that,  and  then  even  this  or   that  only  partially,  men 


] 


have  shrunk  from  the  whole  which  erst  was  their  meas- 
ure. Totality  is  denied  specialised  men.  Under  this 
denial  their  moral  nature  suffers.  Into  a  part  and 
fragment  men  cannot  throw  their  whole  soul.  This  is 
"he  burning  indictment  written  by  prophets  and  articu- 
lated by  prophetic  passion  and  impatience  against  our 
modern  systems.  They  denounce  them  as  man-des- 
troyers. And  they  are  in  the  right.  This  is  the  burden 
of  Ruskin's  bitter  expostulation  with  our  factory-enslaved 
V  ,  and  factory- made  society.  He  laments,  with  facts  to 
v.\  comment  most  pointedly  his  regrets,  the  death  of  the 
artist  who  in  his  supreme  and  sublime  independent 
creative  activities  produced  always  a  whole  something^ 
Nr\  which  as  a  whole  could  not  but  partake  of  the  beauties 
of  cosmic  creation;  his  ire  is  stirred  and  his  irony 
aroused  by  the  sight  of  the  slave  doomed  to  monotonous 
tricks  in  the  making  of  something  of  which  he  only  sees 
a  part  and  a  23art  at  that  the  relation  of  which  to  the 
ultimate  whole  he  cannot  anticipate  by  divination  nor 
figure  to  himself  by  retrospective  imagination. 

Similarly,  though  with  less  justification,  have  voices 
in  angry  resentment  been  raised  to  denounce  and  ex- 
pose the  debasing  eff'ects  of  the  new  philanthropy.  Or- 
ganized charity,  many  have  contended,  is  a  misnomer. 
In  its  name  the  very  flowers  w^hich  awoke  under  the 
touch  of  the  angels  of  sentiment  and  sympathy  while 
men  and  women  did,  to  use  the  colloquial  phrase,  "their 
own  charity,"  are  now  plucked  up  by  their  roots.  Cold 
and  often  cynic  pedantry  wearsthecrown  which  by  rights 
belongs  to  warm  hearted  and  tender  compassion.   What- 


ever  imperfection  may  have  clung  to  the  old  method,  it 
had  redeeming  virtues  which  in  the  new  are  utterly 
absent.  Man  met  his  brother  man.  The  hand  of  the 
petitioner  grasped  that  of  the  helper.  Eye  looked  into 
eye  and  heart  beat  in  response  to  heart.  No  screen  of 
official  formality  sejDarated  the  sufferer  from  him  who 
had  the  power  and  the  desire  to  ease  it.  Xo  deputy 
whose  real  impulse  is  the  greed  for  office  or  the  need  of 
a  comfortable  berth  and  the  feathering  of  his  own  nest, 
acted  as  the  go-between.  If  there  were  the  difficulties 
and  possibilities  of  error  always  besetting  personal  re- 
lations, there  were  also  the  rewards  and  incentives  which 
never  fail  to  tell  through  personal  contact  and  personal 
interest.  Gratitude  is  eliminated  from  the  new  ecjua- 
tion  and  the  joy  of  giving  has  been  chilled  by  the  sub- 
scription blank.  The  whole  matter  has  been  reduced 
to  figures  and  columns  of  figures,  speaking  of  classes 
and  categories  into  which  human  folly  and  human  suf- 
fering and  human  tears  and  human  despair  are  pigeon- 
holed. The  modern  scheme  culminates  in  administra- 
tion by  proxy  and  therefore  the  very  soul  is  taken  out 
of  benevolence,  for  proxy  is  incompatible  with  genuine 
sympathy  and  where  this  sweet  perfume  is  rejected, 
cold  mechanical  routine  soon  completes  the  asphyxia- 
tion of  the  warmer  and  nobler  impulses. 

In  these  and  similar  counts  runs  the  indictment. 
Were  the  charge  well  substantiated  few  there  would  be 
to  stand  up  and  defend  the  unmitigated  fraud  or  say 
one  word  in  extenuation  of  the  shameless  pretender  to 
distinctions  legitimately  belonging  to  another  dynasty. 


We  should  all  make  haste  to  return  to  the  better  ways 
of  olden  days,  when  pity  was  deep  and  benevolence 
was  directly  resjionsive  to  the  call  of  weakness  and 
blindness.  And  none  would  have  the  more  urgent 
duty  to  protest  than  he  who  from  the  prophet's  watch- 
tower  must  proclaim  the  woe  to  them  that  name  sweet 
sour  and  sour  sweet  and  parade  death  in  the  garment  of 
life.  But  is  there  no  third  possibility?  Is  the  alterna- 
tive rightly  pointed  between  the  slipshod  but  impulsive 
ways  of  former  schemes  and  the  systematic  but  frigid 
devices  of  the  new  school?  Must  we  forfeit  the  personal 
factor  and  force  and  all  that  it  implies  when  we  would 
apply  in  the  domain  of  philanthropy  the  principles 
operative  in  all  other  fields  of  activity,  viz.,  specialisation 
under  the  law  of  division  of  labor  and  assignment  of 
function  and  its  corrective  and  corelative,  organization^ 
strenuous  and  systematic  and  of  wide  reach? 

A  deeper  analj^sis  of  the  aims  and  expedients  of  or- 
ganized charity  as  understood  by  expert  science  will  re- 
veal that  contrary  to  this  accusation,  which  declares 
organization  to  sound  the  death-knell  of  all  vital  and  per- 
sonal attributes  and  achievements  in  the  household  of 
altruism,  the  new  system  calls  for  more  strenuous  asser- 
tion and  more  insistent  consideration  of  the  personal 
equation  than  did  the  old.  It  opens  opportunities  for 
personal  work  and  redemption  which  at  its  best  the  old 
never  suspected.  The  new  has  indeed  no  patience  witli 
mere  gush  and  sentimental  spasms.  But  let  us  be  can- 
did; did  not  in  most  cases  the  much-lauded  charity  of 
the  heart  cloak  underneath  its  wdde  folds  the  barest  and 

10 


most  disgusting   selfishness?     The  motive  underlying 
the  ostentatious  act  was  always  anxiety  to  win  respect 
and   respectability.     And  in  the  other  instances  when 
this  was  not  the  prompting  reason,  the  gift  was  expres- 
sive  of    a  selfish   solicitude  to  escape  from  one's  own 
conscience.     Charity  was  degraded  into  an  expedient  to 
bribe  providential  Xemesis  into  connivance.    The  doles 
and  driblets  falling  into  the  dirty  clutches  of  the  beggar 
were  expected  to  purchase  for  the  donor  a  crown  in 
heaven.     Even  in  the  still  more  restricted  number  of 
acts  in  which  this  speculative  element  was  not  dynamic, 
acts  generally  performed  by   hysterical  or  thoughtless 
women,  it  is  plain  to  the  psychologist  that  the  impul- 
sive andif  3^ou  so  will  spontaneous  benevolence  of  former 
days,  even  at  its  best  and  noblest,  did  not  aim  at   the 
relief  of  the  donee  so   much  as   at  that   of  the  donor. 
The  benevolent   would   have  the  right  to  admire  her- 
self a  noble  woman.     The  well  known  charity   fiend,  a 
very  pest  and  plague  always,  is  of  this  order  the  most 
striking  specimen.     Her  busy   determination  to   help 
the  poor  is  to  her  a  source  almost  of  carnal  pleasure. 
She  must  have  ^'her  poor"  to  satisfy  her  own  appetite  for 
self-adulation.     This  sort  of  charity  is  like  the  craving 
which  possesses  the  opium  eater.     Let  us  be  glad  that 
organized  charity  has  limited  the  field  of  the  charity 
fiend,    Let  us  even  so  rejoice  that  it  stands  between  the 
impulsively  and  sentimentally  benevolent  and  their  own 
defenseless   self.     This   indulgence   in  the  voluptuous 
sensations  of  helpfulness  to  others,  like  every  other  un- 
healthy pandering  to  excessive  or  illegitimate  appetites. 


11 


iinist  in  the  long  run  weaken  the  whole  organism. 
Whatever  the  new  scheme  may  have  wrought  in  other 
regards,  having  reduced  sentimentalism  to  a  minimum 
and  unmasked  the  egotism  of  the  usurpers  that  would 
parade  in  the  purple  of  queen  charity,  it  has  certainly 
been  of  mighty  benefit  to  the  classes  whose  privilege  it 
is  to  give  and  in  so  far  it  has  earned  its  title  to  grateful 
recognition  on  the  part  of  all  who  would  have  us  be 
stronger  men  and  truer  women. 

Indeed  they  are  strangers  in  the  outer-courts,  let  alone 
in  the  holy  of  holies,  of  modern  philanthropy's  sanc- 
tuary who  have  not  learned  to  know  that  according  to 
the  decalogue  there  enwalled,the  collection  of  money  is 
the  least  of  its  anxieties.  Among  its  promises  there  is 
no  laurel  wreath  for  the  rich  man  who  gives  only  his 
money.  Contributions  in  the  coin  of  the  realm  is  the 
smallest  service  and  the  easiest  which  is  demanded. 
The  collection  of  the  funds  required  is  of  course  an  in- 
dispensable function.  But  money  is  after  all  in  the 
conception  of  the  new  science  of  social  hygiene,  which 
is  only  another  phrase  for  modern  philanthropy, 
merely  what  the  lubricating  oil  is  to  the  engine.  It 
cannot  be  spared,  but  he  who  handles  the  can  must  have 
a  care  not  to  get  his  fingers  soiled.  Nabob  who  sub- 
scribes readily  or  under  pressure  no  matter  how  great 
a  sum,  but  who  will  not  give  what  is  nobler  and  more 
essential  provided  he  own  it,  himself,  has  not  yet  been 
touched  by  the  new  conviction  of  the  better  minded  and 
more  purely  souled  who,  having  no  money  or  little  to 
give,  give  themselves  to  their  brother.  Let  hired  panegy- 

12 


rist  at  the  bier  sing  the  praises  of  defunct  mere  million- 
aire in  never  so  many  keys  if  he  be  proclaimed  a  truly 
generous  man,  cassocked  preacher  or  fashionable  rabbi 
though  the  hawker  of  these  common  religio-social 
polite  deviations  from  truth  be,  the  truer  estimate  of  the 
deceased  money-maker's  life's  worth  will  be  in  the  ver- 
dict that  having  no  self  to  give  to  others  he  occupied 
only  a  very  small  jDlace  in  the  moral  economy  of  the 
fraternity  of  man.  Humanities  cannot  be  exj^ressed  in 
terms  of  the  bank  account.  And  as  the  prime  solicitude 
of  philanthropy  is  for  a  nobler,  truer  humanity,  money 
cannot  be  the  primary  or  ultimate  equivalent  of  its  im- 
plications. 

But  how  so  does  the  modern  philanthropy,  organized 
as  it  is  and  must  be,  offer  opportunity  for  the  devotion 
and  cultivation  of  this  which  is  more  vital  than  dollars? 
Few  are  the  places  on  the  administrative  boards  and 
executive  committees.  Are  all  others  excluded  from 
the  blessings  which  the  priestly  ministry  at  the  altar 
earns  and  dispenses?  Indeed  not.  Regiments  of  thou- 
sands of  workers  the  new  philanthropy  would  enroll. 
Brigades  of  volunteers  are  needed  to  carry  out  to  the 
full  its  program  of  social  redemption.  This  army 
"whose  duty  it  is  to  save"  has  rank  and  brevet  for  both 
the  young  and  the  old,  the  learned  and  the  illiterate, 
the  rich  and  the  modestly-pursed.  Organized  charity 
reads  through  the  eyes  of  the  friendly  visitor.  It 
mobilizes  the  sympathy  of  the  college  settlement  resi- 
dent and  sends  out  its  sisterhoods  of  love.  This  is  the 
Paradise   of  personal  service   which  the  new  charity 

13 


recognizes.  It  is  not  true  that  because  we  have  eaten  of 
the  tree  of  the  new  knowledge  we  have  been  expelled 
from  this  Eden  and  are  now  denied  access  to  the  old 
tree  of  life.  The  new  charity  is  a  cherub,  welcoming 
all  who  ask  for  admission  at  the  threshold  of  the  home 
of  peace.  Its  is  not  the  flaming  sword  keeping  at  a 
distance  the  weary  pilgrim.  Its  is  the  palm  beckon- 
ing him  to  approach  and  enter.  The  friendly  visitor, 
the  resident  and  the  sister  wall  glean  all  the  spiritual 
ecstacies  and  enjoy  all  the  pleasures  of  personal  con- 
tact which  we  have  heard  so  often  extolled  as  the  com- 
pensations of  the  former  personal  system.  But  they 
will  do  this  in  saner  measure  than  was  possible  of  old. 
Their  own  manhood  and  womanhood  will  grow  be- 
cause their  brother's  or  sister's  whose  friend  they  Avould 
be,  grows  also.  They  give  while  receiving  blessings  and 
the  recipients  of  their  confidences  give  as  much  to  them 
as  they  bestow  upon  them.  This  reciprocity  of  in- 
creased  humanity  the  old  method  could  not  actualise. 
Gratitude  in  the  new  is  not  one-sided.  It  leaps  into 
flash  at  both  poles  of  the  circuit. 

If,  on  the  one  hand,  false  inferences  have  been  accen- 
tuated as  to  the  ultimate  impoverishment  of  the  stores 
of  sympathy  and  love  which  man  up  to  this  age  of  sys- 
tem idolatry  and  organizing  monomania  could  readily 
replenish,  on  the  other,  wdth  like  want  of  judgment, 
false  expectations  have  been  raised  and  encouraged  as 
the  promise  of  the  new  methods.  The  ferment  of  the 
old  leaven  of  egotism  has  not  been  neutralized  entirely 
by  the  alkali  of  altruism  believed  to  dominate  the  sons 


14 


of  our  generation  or  the   sons  of    Israel's    covenant. 
Many  have  hailed  the  new  order  of  things  in  our  chari- 
ties and  have  lent  it  support  and  countenance  because 
they  anticipated  to  get  immediate  release  from  obliga- 
tions which  are  essentially  of  a  private   nature.     But 
organized  charity  never  was  meant  to  shield  the  strong 
and  capable,   the  rich  and   affluent,  or  even  those  in 
modest  comfort  against  duties  which  family  and  friend- 
ship or  association  in   business  or  profession   impose. 
These  relations  are  elemental.    They  persist  in  spite  of 
all  concentration  of  effort  and  combination  of  resources. 
The  brother  primarily  remains  the  ward  of  his  brother. 
And  the  friend  retains,  first  and  last,  his  sacred  claim 
and  right  to  the  help  of  his  friend.     Through  the  varied 
ramifications  and  within  the  extensive  range  of  these 
interdependences  and  natural  and  moral  affinities,  even 
under  the  most  exhaustive  application  of  the  schemes 
of  organized  charities,  there  will  always  be  ample  room 
for  the  assertion  and  activity  of  private  interest  and  in- 
tense personal  sympathy.    It  is  also  a  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  organized  charities  are  intended  to  cover  the 
whole   field  of  altruistic  effort.     The  little   mountain 
brooks  continue  their  descent  from  the  heights  though 
their  waters  combine  in  thelow -lands  to  flood  the  deeper 
current  of  the  rivers.     On   their  way  to  their  destiny 
the  silvery  w^avelets  kiss  into  fragrance  and  call  into 
flowered  charms  the  rocky  borders    of    their  sloping 
bed.     As  we  are   members  of  human  society  our  altru- 
ism merges  with  kindred  impulse  stirring  our  fellows, 
in  a  broad  stream  sweeping  before  the  eyes  of  all  on  to 


15 


the  waiting  ocean.  But  while  we  are  tending  to  this 
common  goal  man\^  a  thought  and  consideration  conse- 
crated to  and  centered  in  the  welfare  of  one  or  the  other 
individual  must  and  may  shape  itself  into  deed  of  which 
no  record  is  kept,  save  in  the  great  ledger  in  which  God 
himself  makes  the  entries.  The  detection  of  genius  or 
talent  frittering  its  soul  away  in  the  drudgery  of  menial 
work  when  natal  endowment  cries  out  for  the  oi)portu- 
nity  and  freedom  to  prepare  for  the  ministry  of  the  arts 
or  the  priesthood  of  the  sciences,  is  still  incumbent  up- 
on individual  magnanimity.  Little  reflection  suffices 
to  expose  the  groundlessness  of  the  apprehension  that 
under  the  new  system  there  is  no  place  for  individual 
effort  with  its  attending  rewards  and  increment  of 
moral  force,  as  well  as  the  utter  baseness  of  the  plea 
that  organized  charity  shall  relieve  its  contributors 
from  obligations  which  blood  and  spirit  have  woven 
and  continue   to  impress. 

In  our  fetich-worship  of  institutionalism,  however, 
we  deprive  ourselves  of  natural  and  abundantly 
proffered  opportunity  for  individual  synipathy  and  per- 
sonal  interest.  This  idolatry  of  institutionalism 
arises  from  the  mistaken  notion  that  the  problems  of 
philanthropy  are  exclusively  economic.  Were  they 
this  the  conclusion  would  be  inavoidable  and  incontro- 
vertible that  the  economically  cheapest  plan  is  always 
the  best  and  therefore  under  all  circumstances  the  one 
to  be  adopted  and  pushed  to  its  consistent  end.  Under 
the  additional  pressure  of  parsimoniously  provided 
means  and  the  constant  prospect  of  a  deficit,  small  is  the 


16 


wonder  that  he  who  entertains  the  opmion  that  institu- 
tionalism  is  not  sanctioned  by  the  demands  of  better 
and  broader  science  preaches  to  deaf  ears  and  if  he  per- 
sists runs  the  risk  of  personal  disfavor  justly  visited  up- 
on a  pestiferous  crank  or  worse.    The  paucity  of  re- 
sources is    always  a    potent  argument.     Its  well-nigh 
universal  and  painfully  palpable  presence  may  be  ad- 
mitted. But  is  there  no  possibility  of  sparing  the  minds 
of  those  who  would  look  after  the  welfare  of  our  depend- 
ent orphans  and  old  people,  the  fright  from  this  gaunt 
spectre  and  thus  to  predispose  them  into  greater  readi- 
ness to  accord  an  audience  to  the  advocate  of  a  different 
scheme?     I  hold  that  there  is.    The  collection  of  con- 
tributions is  a  department  which  should  rigidly  be  di- 
vorced from  the  distributions  of  the  funds  or  their  ap- 
plication and  expenditure.  Because  this  principle  has 
not   been   sufficiently   well  respected  our  efforts  have 
more  or  less  been  hampered  and  the  prime  discrimina- 
tion which  the  anxious  stewards  of  our  various  benevo- 
lences were  compelled  to  carry  in  mind  was  naturally 
the  cheapness  or  expensiveness  of  the  devices  proposed. 
At  last,  we  in  Chicago  as  before  us  our  friends  in  Cin- 
cinnati, have  resolved  to  separate  the  two  distinct  social 
operations,  the  collection  of  funds  from  their  appropria- 
tion.   As  the  new  division  will  prove  its  wisdom  by  the 
results,  even  now  foreshadowed  in  the  experience  of  our 
community,  its  friends  will  multiply  and  the  revenues 
will  augment. 

Institutionalism  with  its   prime  recommendation  of 
cheapness  will  in  consequence  lose  its  pre-eminence  in 


17 


the  exclusive  favor  of  the  well  intending  but  naturally  in- 
dolent public,  l^ecause  instituti<  )nalism  has  been  our  sole 
refuge,  it  has  not  earned  an  unclouded  title  to  continu- 
ance. It  is  now  ramparted  behind  the  natural  inertia, 
tlie  disinclination  of  groups  of  men  and  minds  to  make 
a  change.  It  is  dyked,  as  already  indicated,  by  the 
figures  of  the  financial  secretary's  reports.  I,  for  one, 
cannot  but  feel  a  twinge  of  conscience  that  somehow  or 
other  I,  as  one  of  the  men  of  the  pulpit,  have  failed  to 
do  my  full  duty  when  listening  to  the  congratulations 
loudly  emphasized  at  our  annual  meetings  because  we 
have  succeeded  in  reducing  the  annual  cost  per  capita 
to  one  hundred  and  five  dollars  in  the  maintenance  of 
our  homes  and  as3'lums.  I  am  willing  to  suppress  my 
suspicion  that  these  figures  have  been  doctored  by  the 
failure  to  include  the  original  investment  in  buildings 
and  grounds  and  equipments,  interest  on  which  certainly 
is  a  charge  legitimately  to  be  booked  in  the  balance 
sheet.  My  grief  arises  from  deeper  sources.  In  order 
to  reduce  the  cost  per  capita  we  have  had  to  increase  the 
number  of  inmates.  And  increase  of  numbers  herded 
together  under  one  root',  to  my  understanding,  is  not  a 
provocation  to  felicitation  but  a  cause  for  serious  alarm. 
And  why?  Because  philanthropy  is  not  a  province  of 
finance  but  of  ethics.  Did  the  moral  life  follow  the  line 
of  least  resistance  there  would  be  no  further  call  for  dis- 
cussing the  situation.  Institutionalism  is  certainly  the 
plan  which  offers  the  easiest  and,  we  are  assured  though 
I  doubt  this,  also  the  financially  cheapest  solution. 
But  it  is  characteristic  of  the  moral  life  never  to  flow 

18 


like  water  along   the  line  of  the  least  resistance.     The 
contrary  is  the  case.     To  be  moral,  thought  and  action 
must  often  take  the  line  of  the  greatest  resistance.  Were 
man  exclusively  under  the  laws  which  regulate  the  mo- 
tions of  planets  or  the  development  of  plants;  were  mind 
and  mud  in  one  and  the  same  plane  or   soul  and  seed 
under  one  destiny  doubtlessly  the   search  for  the  least 
resistence  would  be  prudent  philosophy.     But  man  is 
not  exclusively  organized  matter.     His  is  a  moral  law 
and  a  moral  purpose.      His  humanity  lays  upon  him 
the  painful  task  to  forego  ease  and  meet  difficulty  that 
in  the  overcoming  of  the  obstacle  he  may  find  his  own 
moral  health  and  happiness.     Israel  has  never  followed 
the  line  of  the  least  resistance.     Its   philosophy  is  the 
accentuation  of  the  contrary  proposition  from  that  which 
advises  pursuit  of  paths  of  minimized  effort.     Let  us 
under  the  noble  consecration  to  do  good  to  our  fellow- 
men  which  is  now  upon  us  in   a  degree  formerly  not 
attained,  remember  that  this  philosophy  of  our  religion 
must  also  enter   into  every   branch  of  our  work.     We 
must  wean  ourselves  of  the  fatal  conceit  that  economic 
cheapness  or  moral  easiness  is  the   decisive   factor  and 
sole  consideration.     We  are  asked  to  reinstate  the  indi- 
vidual in  his  rights  to  personal  sympathy  and  personal 
activity  and  interest.     In  restricting  our  institutions  to 
the  absolutely  needful  and  maintaining  them  merely  as 
sheltering  houses  for  the  limited  time  which  must  elapse 
before  homes   can   be   found  for   child  or   veteran,  we 
shall  open  a  way  for  the  exercise  and  fruition  of  indi- 
vidual interest  in  a  degree  unattained  by  our  immediate 

19 


predecessors.  In  saying  this,  far  is  from  my  mind  the 
intention  of  framing  one  phrase  which  might  be  heavy 
with  the  bitterness  of  criticism  of  the  spirit  manifested 
in  the  government  of  our  Jewish  institutions.  As  in- 
stitutions they  challenge  the  admiration  of  the  world. 
They  have  no  superiors.  And  among  our  neighbors 
few  are  found  to  be  on  as  high  a  level.  Fortunately, 
we  Jews  have  received  from  our  past  of  suffering  a 
legacy  which  proved  an  invulnerable  armor  and 
shield  against  many  of  the  vicious  tendencies  operative 
in  the  institutional  charities  of  the  non-Jews.  We  are 
not  very  apt  to  brutalize  and  terrorize  and  demoralize 
the  wards  entrusted  to  our  keeping,  be  they  tender 
orphans  or  tired  veterans. 

But  for  how  long  will  this  legacy  continue  to  stand  us 
in  similar  good  stead?  Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves. 
Our  grand  temples,  our  large  congregations  with  their 
wonderfully  learned  and  mightily  eloquent  spiritual 
leaders  have  as  yet  not  solved  the  insistent  problem  of 
how^  to  re-activize  in  the  generation  born  in  the  flush 
of  our  new  day  and  under  the  insidious  and  distracting 
pressure  of  modern  materialism,  the  stirringly  sacred 
memories  of  a  past  of  bitter  suffering  and  ideal  hope- 
fulness. 

We  have  not  as  yet  been  able  to  requicken  the  ex- 
perience of  the  fathers  into  incentives  for  the  sons. 
Some  have  perhaps  fossilized  custom  and  ceremony 
and  deem  the  task  done  by  cataloguing  lites  or  ex- 
hibiting implement  in  the  show-case  of  a  museum.  We 
would  have  these  memories  be  momentous  with  force- 


20 


ful  moral  life,  mentors  and  megaphones  of  calls  to  men 
and  women  of  unborn  tomorrow. 

And  when,  as  I  am  afraid  will  soon  come  to  pass, 
that  source  of  influence  shall  have  ceased  proffering  its 
refreshing  draughts,  our  institutions  will  fall  as  inevit- 
ably under  the  blight  of  institutionalism  as  have  the 
others  founded  and  reared  and  administered  without 
the  restrictive  and  remedial  if  subtle  antidotes,  come  to 
us  from  our  glorious  memories  of  martyrdom.  Will 
then  the  Jewish  community  awaken  to  the  necessity  of 
accommodating  their  philanthropies  to  the  better 
scheme  of  individual  treatment  under  organized  direc- 
tion and  supervision? 

Economically  speaking,  it  may  be  true  that  no  child 
could  be  reared  in  a  private  family  at  SlOo  per  annum. 
But  what  of  it?  Physiology  teaches  us,  and  psychology 
presses  home  the  lesson,  that  organs,  if  not  employed, 
atrophize.  In  the  Mammoth  Cave  of  Kentucky  the 
fish  have  no  eyes.  Having  no  need  for  e^^es  they  never 
activized  the  optical  nerve  and  the  optical  organ.  Put 
a  fish  into  this  lightless  lake  tod  a}'  and  let  his  offspring 
swim  about  in  it  for  one  or  two  generations,  his 
descendants  will  gradually  lose  sight  and  will  ultimate- 
ly accommodate  themselves  to  absolute  darkness  unlit 
by  star  or  satellite. 

If  we,  like  those  specimens  of  the  finny  tribe,  will 
cease  utilizing  a  function  of  our  moral  organism,  it  will 
die.  Takeaway  the  child  from  his  mother, the  child  is 
not  the  only  one  to  suffer.  The  mother  herself  is 
doomed  to  greater  privation.     The  mother's  maternity 

21 


is  weakened.  Take  away  the  venerable  grandfather 
from  the  household,  put  hin:^  into  a  beautiful  hotel, 
give  him  all  the  comforts  that  bountiful  ingenuity  can 
devise,  his  grand-children,  losing  his  presence,  will 
forfeit  an  incentive  to  activize  an  imp(»rtant  function  of 
their  moral  nature. 

Morally  measured,  a  plan  which  is  under  the  beset- 
ing  anxiety  of  regarding  the  family  as  focal,  sacred  and 
inviolable,  is  by  all  odds  the  better.  With  every  child 
that  comes  to  the  household  a  new  source  of  blessing 
opens.  The  child  is  the  Moses,  wielding  a  God-gifted 
staff  to  compel  the  rock  to  yield  the  refreshing  and  in- 
vigorating waters  of  love.  Unhappy  the  mother  that 
has  lost  her  child.  Unhappier  still  the  woman  that 
never  has  .had  a  child. 

Childlessness  was  in  the  Biblical  perspective  the  very 
culmination  of  misery.  It  is  the  Psalmist's  most  sig- 
nificant promise  that  God  will  cause  the  childless 
woman  to  inhabit  the  house  with  as  intense  joy  as  is 
the  mother's  who  clasps  to  her  bosom  her  glad  sons. 

Were  this  view-point  more  earnestly  emphasized, 
would  the  difficulty  appall  us?  Could  for  almost  every 
totally  orphaned  child  not  a  childless  woman  be  found 
that  would  be  willing  to  enlarge  her  own  soul  by  taking 
into  her  own  home  and  her  affections  the  fatherless  and 
motherless?  The  alchemy  of  that  child's  love  and 
presence  will  make  her  more  of  a  woman  and  her  hus- 
band more  of  a  man.  And  the  guardian  appointed  to 
keep  a  watchful  eye  over  the  child  so  placed  will  soon 
discover  a  new  melody  to  his  life.     His  ward  will  grow 

22 


into  his  heart  making  him  the  richer,  while  his  care 
and  confidence  cannot  but  help  enriching  the  soul  of 
the  orphan.  These  few  suggestions  indicate  what  wide 
scope  the  non-institutional  scheme  promises  for  in- 
dividual effort  and  reward  for  rich  or  idle  men  and 
women,  who  now  are  frittering  away  their  excess  of 
ethical  motives  to  no  purpose,  and  would  fain  find 
satisfaction  for  their  yearning  to  be  of  use  personally  to 
some  one  whom  they  could  love. 

But  would  not  at  the  same  time  the  children  also  be 
the  gainers?  There  be  those  that  are  fanatics  of 
uniforms.  Alas!  that  our  steeples  should  sound  the 
death-knell  of  the  19th  century,  while  brass  buttons 
again  are  the  coveted  possession  of  every  little  raga- 
muffin of  the  street.  Alas!  that  this  19th  century 
should  totter  to  its  burial  while  uniforms  are  the  aff'ec- 
tation  of  every  fashionable  miss  and  every  foolish 
matron,  and  khaki  is  the  latest  rage  and  fad. 

At  a  time  like  this  to  speak  against  uniforms  is  blas- 
phemy, and  he  who  does  this  is  held  to  be  either  a 
crank  or  an  old  fogy. 

Is  it  not  an  inspiring  sight  when  thousands  of  orphan 
children  pass  by  in  perfect  alignement,  every  motion 
in  rhythmic  swing,  every  eye  in  one  direction  and  every 
nose  elevated  at  the  commanded  angle?  Is  it  not  stirring 
to  hear  their  band  play  the  martial  marches  to  which 
the  volunteer  regiments  went  forth  to  battle  and  stormed 
the  bastioned  hills  of  our  enemies?  An  inspiring  sight! 
Ask  the  French  writers  what  life  in  military  barracks 
means?     Read  the  books  that  have  come  hot  with   the 


23 


passion  of  vehement  protest  from  the  presses  in  the 
French  capital  last  year,  and  then  plead  if  you  dare  for 
the  military  system  of  education^  which  must  unavoid- 
ably obtain  in  large  institutions. 

I  know  full  well  some  of  our  orphan  homes  have  not 
branded  their  innocent  inmates  with  the  brass  button 
stiojma  of  public  support.  But  even  so,  does  the  child 
enjoy  to  the  full  what  is  the  every  child's  by  God's  own 
law,  his  or  her  individuality?  Is  it  possible  to  conduct 
a  family  of  97  children  with  due  respect  for  the  indi- 
vidual scope  and  initiative  of  every  child?  I  deny  the 
possibility.  They  must  eat  at  the  tap  of  the  bell.  They 
must  pray  at  the  call  of  the  trumpet.  They  are  in 
grave  danger  of  being  shriveled  into  automatons.  They 
lose  what  no  one  has  a  right  to  rob  them  of,  their 
personality,  their  personal  distinctness  and  value.  And 
having  no  outlet  and  provocation  for  their  filial  affec- 
tion, this  function  of  their  moral  nature  goes  to  seed.  It 
atrophizes. 

Once  in  awhile  a  great  man  will  arise, — and  I  know^ 
one  such  whose  name  to  mention  delicacy  forbids, — 
who  owns  a  wonderful  genius  for  love,  who  knows  how 
to  awaken  fihal  feelings  in  the  hearts  of  his  "little"  (?) 
family  of  five  hundred  and  more  children. 

But  have  you  the  assurance  that  his  like  will  again 
be  found?  Blessed  the  institution  which  is  under  his 
guidance,  but  all  the  poorer  by  comparison  are  the  other 
institutions  that  are  not  in  the  care  of  another  like  him. 
Men  of  genius  are  not  made  to  order.  They  cannot  be 
commanded  by  never  so  liberal  a  salary  and  never  so 


24 


alluring  an  advertisement  in  our  religious  (!)  papers. 
This  matter  of  atrophizing  filial  affection  is  by  no 
means  of  no  moment  Pedagogues  know  that  when  a 
child  is  of  necessity  deprived  of  the  natural  outflo^v  of 
his  filial  sentiments,  these  will  seek  another  channel. 
Repressed,  they  assume  volcanic  violence. 

Hence,  in  large  boarding-schools,  hence  in  our  insti- 
tutions, certain  peculiar—  to  use  no  stronger  word — and 
disquieting  mental  phenomena  are  always  sure  to 
appear,  which  Kraft-Erbing  and  other  alienists  have  not 
been  slow  to  number  among  the  anomalies,  and  mor- 
alists among  the  dreaded  immoralities,  to  which  the 
herding  of  parentless  boys  and  girls  is  apt  to  lead. 
This  anomaly  is  characterized  by  the  exuberance  of 
attachment  for  the  neighbors  in  the  dormitory,  and  this 
unnatural  excess  of  affection  for  boy  on  the  part  of  boy 
leads  to— horrors  !  This  danger  is  always  to  be  appre- 
hended when  the  child's  natural  right  to  love  mother, 
father,  or  one  that  takes  their  place,  is  unnaturally 
denied  him. 

But,  say  you,  it  is  difficult,  yes  impossible,  to  find  fit 
foster  fathers  and  mothers.  It  may  be  difficult,  but  I 
deny  that  it  is  impossible.  Most  of  the  inmates  of  our 
Jewish  orphanages  are  half  orphans,  their  mother  being 
the  survivor.  In  this  case,  the  solution  is  extremely 
natural  and  easy.  Aid  the  mother  to  rear  her  own  child 
or  children.  Appoint  a  guardian  to  assist  her  in  this 
arduous  task.  The  guardian  will  become  her  friend. 
The  money  which  she  receives  will  go  a  great  way  to 
make  her  economically  independent.     If  she  lives  in  a 

25 


neighborhood  which  does  not  promise  well  for  her  or 
her  children  in  morals,  induce  her  to  settle  in  other 
(juarters.  The  child  will  grow  up  in  blissful  ignorance 
of  the  fact  that  he  is  a  recipient  of  charity.  He  is  not 
removed  to  a  palatial  "hotel"  for  a  few  years  to  return 
to  his  original  and  naturall}^  more  modest  surroundings 
and  feel  that  his  mother's  home  is  too  mean  for  him. 
If  a  girl  she  grows  U}*  in  the  family  and  naturally  learns 
her  household  duties  without  ado  or  trouble.  There  is 
no  danger  of  contracting  unnatural  friendships.  And 
the  mother  herself  is  protected  against  the  temptation 
to  forget  her  child  and  to  contract  a  second  and  gener- 
ally unhappy  matrimonial  responsibility. 

But  what  about  those  that  have  no  mother  or  are  to- 
tal orphans?  Is  there  no  aunt  or  relative  that  might 
be  trusted  and  would  gladly  accept  the  trust  under  con- 
ditions like  those  outlined?  And  if  there  is  not,  and 
these  cases  will  be  so  few  as  to  become  almost,  as  the 
French  mathematicians  say,  a  quantity  negligeable,  some 
decent  childless  family  can  with  due  effort  be  discovered 
where  the  child  will  under  the  supervision  of  a  con- 
scientious guardian  enjoy  the  advantages  of  a  homelife 
and  win  his  way  into  the  affections  of  his  foster  parents 
very  rapidly. 

And  especially  in  small  communities  this  family  plan 
is  feasible  and  very  easy  of  execution.  It  will  save 
many  a  child  from  loss  of  self,  but  seems  to  me  it  might 
also  rescue  the  small  country  congregation  from  the 
curse  now  upon  most  of  its  class  of  utter  selfishness. 

The  country  Jew  has   become  a  bj^-word  among  us. 

26 


Mention  of  him  leaves  a  certain  by-taste  in  our  mouth. 
What  does  the  country  Jew  do  for  his  Judaism?  At 
Pesach  he  buys  about  ten  pounds  of  Matzoth.  and  on 
Yom  Kippur  he  locks  his  front  door  while  the  rear 
door  is  open.  That  is  all  he  has  of  Judaism.  His 
charities  are  zero.  He  belongs  to  a  lodge.  If  there  be 
an  orphan  in  his  town  he  sends  him  to  the  cities.  He 
is  entitled  to  this  by  virtue  of  his  membership  in  the 
secret  brotherhood.  Now  why  should  he  not  retain 
these  poor  orphans  at  home?  Guardianship  will  give 
him  a  new  interest  in  humanity.  He  will  awaken  to  a 
new^  sense  of  responsibility.  In  the  open  country  the 
child  is  certainly  better  off  than  in  the  crowded  dormi- 
tory of  the  Asylum.  And  the  mother  wall  not  swell  by 
her  removal  to  Cleveland  or  Chicago  or  New  Orleans 
the  population  of  the  ghetto  or  slum.  In  the  small 
congregation  my  plan  offers  no  difficulties,  provided  we 
recognize  that  in  moral  things  the  line  to  take  is  not 
that  of  the  least  but  often  that  of  the  greatest  resistance. 

Organization  seems,  in  another  way,  to  trench  upon 
individual  rights  and  duties.  Under  it,  the  tempta- 
tion is  always  to  classify.  Statistics  is  the  besetting 
thought  and  with  a  view  to  the  annual  report's  show- 
ing, superintendents  and  others  are  very  apt  to  run 
toward  formalism  and  to  believe  that  the  main  object 
of  their  employment  is  to  register  and  catalogue.  Cer- 
tainly we  must  classify,  and  that  not  merely  for  the 
purpose  of  statistics,  but  also  for  the  purpose  of  reme- 
dial activity. 

But  let  us  not  forget  that  men  never  belong  totally  or 


27 


identically  to  a  class.  The  old  Talmud  tells  us  that 
God  created  every  man  in  his  image  and  still  he  made 
no  man  the  exact  repetition  of  any  other  man.  We  are 
not  exact  counteri)arts  one  of  the  other.  You  who  are 
engaged  in  the  line  of  business,  which  even  God  was 
engaged  in  as  a  Malbish  Ar umim,  know  ihsii  ready  made 
garments  cut  to  average  patterns  never  exactly  fit  the 
actual  man.  We  have  our  indiosyncrasies  and  eccen- 
tricities. Sonie  have  these  and  others  those.  But  each 
one  is  a  pattern  to  himself,  and  no  two  living  human 
beings  are  exact  duplicates. 

For  all  our  classifications  and  classes,  when  dealing 
with  the  dependent,  the  poor  and  the  sufferer,  let  us 
remember  that  we  are  not  dealing  with  a  set.  We  can- 
not pigeon-hole  applicants.  We  must  individualize 
them. 

Superintendents  are  natural  victims  of  their  profess- 
ion. Their  professional  disease  is  the  gradual  but  un- 
conscious loss  from  sheer  over-use  of  the  power  of 
individualizing.  Where  is  the  remedy?  Shall  recourse 
be  had  to  interference  by  the  Boards?  The  Boards  are 
auditing  corporations  of  the  finances  and  in  their  hands 
lie  only  the  general  policies  of  the  society.  Would  a 
Board  in  a  hospital  presume  to  interfere  with  the  doc- 
tor's treatment  of  a  case?  It  is  the  doctor  who  has  to 
decide  whether  a  leg  has  to  be  amputated  or  not,  and 
if  the  Board  in  charge  of  a  hospital  should  presume  on 
the  score  of  the  expense  involved  to  stay  the  surgeon's 
hands,  the  members  thereof  would  la}^  themselves  open 
to  the  just  criticism  of  an  indignant  and  outraged  public. 

28 


It  is  the  physician's  and  the  surgeon's  exclusive  part  in 
clinic  or  ward  to  diaojnose  the  case  and  to  prescribe  the 
treatment. 

We  are  dealing  in  our  relief  work  with  sick  persons,  so 
to  speak,  with  the  maimed  and  the  mutilated.  They  must 
be  individualized.  There  is  no  single  case  of  typhoid 
fever  that  runs  a  course  identical  with  another.  There 
is  no  single  case  of  hunger,  of  dependency,  of  despond- 
ency, but  has  its  individual  aspects  and  its  individual 
modifying  and  moulding  causes.  The  Board  cannot 
interfere.  It  would  not  interfere  with  the  superintend- 
ents, if  we  had  the  superintendents  that  organized 
charity  calls  for. 

Organized  charity  has  created  a  new  profession,  a 
profession  as  high  as  is  mine,  as  is  that  of  the  physi- 
cian, of  the  engineer,  and  of  the  trained  man  of  busi- 
ness. Applied  sociology  demands  professional  training, 
knowledge  and  judgment.  Our  universities  have 
courses  for  those  who  would  pursue  this  new  vocation. 
We  have  independent  degrees  even  in  the  departments 
and  branches  leading  to  the  required  preparation  for 
such  posts  and  charges  as  the  superintendencies  of  our 
institutions  and  of  our  philanthropic  agencies. 

It  is  time  to  remember  that  we  must  have  professional 
men  in  these  responsible  positions.  Economically 
biased,  of  course  the  man  of  business  will  argue  that 
the  cheapest  man  is  the  best  man.  If  the  market  is 
overstocked  with  worn-out  rabbis  and  decrepit  teachers 
the  rate  is  very  much  depressed.  Worn-out  rabbis  are 
cheap,  and  as  not  every  rabbi  is  so  placed  as  to  be  per- 


29 


fectly  outspoken  and  still  secure  of  his  position,  and  on 
the  contrary  some  always  are,  in  the  elegant  phraseolo- 
gy of  our  congregational  bosses,  out  of  a  job,  ])ecause 
forsooth  they  have  incurred  the  disfavor  of  Mrs.  Newly 
Rich,  or  cannot  compete  in  personal  beauty  with  the 
Apollo-like  graces  of  a  yo.unger  rival,  there  is  very  little 
danger  of  the  supply  of  "misfits"  running  short.  Pro- 
vided his  terms  be  not  exorbitantly  high  the  old  or  dis- 
charged rabbi  is  elected  to  the  honors  and  entrusted 
with  the  responsibilities  of  the  superintendencies  of  our 
charities.  This  metamorphosis  from  awkward  clerical 
helplessness  to  trusted  competency  and  appointment  is 
all  the  more  remarkable  since  while  the  rabbi  is  still  in 
the  flush  of  his  mental  and  moral  vigor  he  is  rated  an 
ignoramus  on  all  things  bearing  on  charity.  He  is 
kept  off  the  executive  boards.  His  suggestions  are 
sneered  at  and  laughed  at.  Though  he  has  never  han- 
dled a  shoemaker's  awl  or  worn  the  cobbler's  apron,  he 
is  told  to  stick  to  his  last.  Wisdom  on  the  needs  of 
public  or  private  relief  work  is  the  sole  prerogative  of 
men  and  women  who  have  come  by  their  science  by 
intuition  and  not  by  tuition. 

I  am  not  in  this  drawing  a  portrait  of  one  or  the 
other  of  our  superintendents.  I  for  one  respect  them 
most  highly  and  would  trust  their  judgment  much 
more  readily  than  I  should  that  of  their  infallible 
superior  officers.  But  because  the  knowledge  has  still 
to  be  spread  abroad  that  positions  like  theirs  are  for 
professional  experts  with  all  the  freedom  that  such  pro- 
fessional science  should  be  accorded,  the  work  of  even 


30 


experienced  men  is  hampered,  and. ultimately  robbed 
of  its  effectiveness.  Professional  training  must  flower, 
and  does  so,  into  sustained  o^jen-mindedness.  Practical 
experience,  unless  corrected  and  deepened  by  profes- 
sional science,  cannot  escape  falling  into  errors  indi- 
genous to  the  atmosphere  of  irksome  and  irritatingly 
monotonous  complaint  and  insolence  of  a2:)peal  vrhich 
every  day  and  in  all  seasons  surrounds  the  desk  and  fills 
the  office.  Unless  this  natural  condition  be  corrected 
by  the  resourcefulness  and  resiliancy  which  the  pro- 
fessionalh'  trained  man  should  and  does  possess,  the 
work  will  lapse  into  routine  and  generalisation.  The 
applicants  will  cease  to  be  regarded  as  individuals. 
They  will  become  figures. 

The  expert,  scientifically  trained  administrator  will 
never  ossify  into  a  mere  cataloguer,  or  a  quack  with  a 
patent  medicine  believed  to  cure  all  diseases.  As  would 
the  conscientious  physician,  as  would  the  good  lawyer, 
he  will  treat  his  clients  not  as  members  of  a  class  but 
as  individuals.  When  he  has  made  his  diagnosis  and 
prescribed  the  treatment,  no  board  has  the  right  to  say 
him  nay.     His  professional  knowledge  is  supreme. 

As  little  as  the  board  in  a  well  organized  congrega- 
tion has  the  right  to  order  what  a  minister  shall  preach 
or  not,  as  little  as  the  board  of  a  charity  hospital  is 
authorized  to  regulate  the  surgeon's  operation;  even  so 
little  has  the  board  of  an  organized  charity  to  direct 
the  professional  work  or  verdict  of  its  expert  superin- 
tendent. Experts  will  agree  that  it  is  wiser  to  help  one 
case  effectively  than   to   so  manage   and   mangle   one 

31 


hundred  cases  as  to  average  an  expenditure  of  S3. 45 
for  every  petitioner.  Better  one  case  helped  at  a  cost 
of  a  thousand  dollars  than  a  hundred  cases  not  helped 
at  the  same  expense. 

Professional  men  are  not  cheap.  The  professional 
men  are  dear.  It  is  never  the  cheapest  but  often  the 
dearest  man  that  is  the  best  man. 

And  another  thing  seems  pressing! y  needful  in  our 
organized  charity.  We  must  guard  the  individual- 
ity of  our  applicants  by  building  our  offices  in  such  a 
way  that  privacy  can  be  possible  for  a  man  or 
woman  who  for  the  first  time  in  his  or  her  life  treads  the 
thorny  road  and  lays  his  or  her  miser}^  bare  to  another 
fellow-man  not  of  his  or  her  blood. 

These  are  perhaps  Utopian  demands,  but  they  are 
demands  that  have  the  approval  of  our  religion.  They 
are  the  flowers  grown  on  the  stalk  of  applied  ethics,  of 
modern  sociology. 

We  Jews  have  a  duty  to  perform  to  the  world.  We 
boast  of  our  mission.  That  mission  is  not  to  shout 
into  vacancy  "One  God,  one  God,  one  God."  The  old 
projDhet  protested:  "Shout  not  "n  ^2^n,  the  Temple, 
the  Temple  of  God."  Our  mission  is  to  be  the  leaders 
along  the  paths  which  they  walk  who  know  that 
our  one  God  is  the  God  of  the  rich  and  of  the  poor,  the 
God  of  the  white  and  of  the  black,  the  God  of  the  Jew 
and  the  God  of  the  non-Jew.  To  be  the  leaders  along 
this  path  is  our  duty  now  if  ever,  for  when  was  time, 
when  opportunity  for  this  duty  was  more  insistent  when 
was  society  cleft  more  painfully  into  classes  and  masses 

32 


than  today?  Moral  distress  stalks  about  in  every  camp. 
Men  rely  upon  bayonets,  not  upon  ballots;  upon  bul- 
lets and  upon  the  policeman's  baton,  and  not  upon  the 
power  of  reasoning.  Selfishness  rampant  on  all  sides, 
brotherhood  on  none. 

The  cry  of  despair  and  of  discontent  fills  the  heavens 
in  every  zone  and  in  every  clime.  Where  autocracy  is 
supreme  and  where  democracy  nominally  is  triumph- 
ant the  Same  cry.  the  same  rage,  the  same  stupor  and 
the  same  stupidit3\     This  is  the  .Jews'  opportunity. 

The  Jew  has  always  been  in  his  philosophy  a  social- 
ist. Our  prophets  were  the  first  socialists.  They 
preached  the  doctrine  that  the  individual  is  onl}^  for 
societv;  that  what  we  are  or  have  belongs  to  all.  though 
w^e  are  the  stewards  for  all  of  our  talents,  time  and 
means  and  minds. 

Our  old  prophets  craved  for  justice  running  as  free 
as  does  water.  They  had  words  of  stinging  censure 
for  those  that  lay  on  their  beds  of  ivory  and  heard  not 
the  cry  of  those  they  had  robbed  and  despoiled.  They 
cared  not  for  the  festal  off'erings  of  those  whose  hands 
were  red  with  the  blood  of  persecution.  But  they 
yearned  for  the  dawn  of  the  day  when  God's  love  should 
fill  the  world,  when  ever3'  man  should  sit  under  his 
own  vine  and  his  fig-tree.  This  plea  for  justice  was 
the  sum  of  their  belief  in  one  God;  this  made  them 
the  prophets  of  God's  own  chosen  people. 

Our  monotheism  shall  not  signify  moneytheism;  it 
shall  be  turned  into  a  humanitarian  force.  The  world 
shall  once  more  learn   from  us  that  it  is  possible  to 

33 


bridge  the  chasm  between  the  learned  and  the  un- 
learned, between  the  wise  and  the  foolish,  the  strong 
and  the  weak,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  that  this  harmon- 
izing and  socialization  of  interest  and  possession  can  be 
wrought  without  interference  with  individual  ability 
and  individual  opportunity  or  responsibility.  The 
world  learning  this  by  our  example  will  indeed  say: 
''This  is  a  wise  and  noble  people."  Ah!  Might  we 
understand  this!  Might  in  every  city  a  Jewish  pattern 
society  be  found  on  the  broadest  basis,  of  the  newest 
design,  built  on  the  pillars  of  the  old  Jewish  love  of 
man  for  man.  Then  we  should  contribute  more,  than 
by  our  temples  and  by  our  prayer-books,  by  our  fes- 
tal days  and  by  our  days  of  rest,  to  the  hastening  at 
the  time  when  on  the  heights  the  Song  of  Peace  will 
sound  its  sweet  naelodies  and  in  the  valleys  its  noble 
refrains  will  echo,  of  millions  freed  at  last  from  fear  of 
death,  of  millions  brought  at  last  into  the  light  of 
God's  love.  And  you  men  and  w'omen  who  have  come 
to  us  with  your  zeal  for  the  noblest  things  and  thoughts, 
you  are  the  vanguard  of  our  Jewish  army,  whose  motto 
is:  "It  is  ours  to  save."  We  Jews  constitute  a  salva- 
tion army,  indeed!  Not  a  salvation  arm}"  with  timbrel 
and  drum,  with  blaring  bugle,  and  blatant  blasphemy, 
but  a  salvation  army  wdth  the  Bread  of  Life,  with  love 
of  man  for  man,  a  salvation  army  stationed  at  its  post 
by  God  in  the  dark  past,  an  army  only  to  be  recalled 
from  its  duty  at  the  supreme  hour  when  the  world  in- 
deed will  be  full  of  God's  knowledge,  and  therefore  of 
God's  peace  and  love  as  the  waters  cover  the  deep  sea; 

34 


when  no  one  will  presume  to  tell  his  brother,  "Know 
thou  thy  God,''  for  every  one,  the  great  and  the  small, 
the  old  and  the  young,  the  strong  and  the  weak,  will 
show  by  their  lives  that  they  are  alive  to  the  truth  that 
each  one  holds  what  he  has,  talent,  time,  treasure,  op- 
portunity, means,  in  trust  for  his  brother  man,  for 
humanity  at  large. 

"Israel,  to  thy  tents!  Let  thy  light  shine  out  upon 
the  world."  Teach  the  world  by  thy  deeds  that  nobler 
than  that  Agape  which  in  another  book  is  said  to  be  the 
greatest  in  the  trinity  of  Faith,  Hope  and  Love,  is  our 
TzedaJcah,  our  Gemiluth  ^Hassadbn — justice  and  the 
interrelated  consciousness  of  our  solidarity  as  children 
of  God's  great  family  of  man. 


35 


No.  IS.. 


Some    Tendencies    of 
the  Modern  Drama 


Discourse  by  Emil  G.  Hirsch. 


re-printed  from 

The  Reform  Advocate. 

Block  &  Newman,  Publishers. 

CHICAGO.  « 


Some  Tendencies  of  the  Modern  Drama.' 


Text:  Second  Chap.  Hosea. 

Books  are  the  windows  of  the  soul  Through  them 
we  can  peep  into  the  innermost  being  of  their  authors. 
But  the  authors  themselves  reflect  a  light  which  is  not 
theirs.  They  too  are  linked  to  their  day.  Their  speech, 
and  in  the  s^ense  not  merely  of  the  articulated  sounds, 
but  of  the  tliought  carried  is  echo  of  the  dominant 
ideas  and  the  ruling  passions  of  tlieir  age.  However 
great  a  man  be  he  is  bonded  to  his  nation,  to  his  genera- 
tion. He  is  a  mountain  peak,  courting  company  with 
the  clouds  indeed;  catching  the  morning  dawn's  greeting 
first  and  retaining  the  evening  dusk's  beauty  last ;  but 
for  all  that,  he  is  upheld  by  the  mountain  range  belovr 
and  with  it  in  turn  roots  in  the  lowlands. 

This  it  is  that  stimulates  interest  in  the  study  of  lit-, 
erature's  masterpieces.  AVe  are  rewarded  for  our  quest 
certainly  by  ascertaining  how  universal  ideas  become  in- 
dividualized as  viewed  in  the  love  and  the  lore  of  a  great 
thinker.  Literature  is  revelation.  It  unfolds  what 
its  prophetic  progenitors  held  to  be  vital  truths ;  it  shows 
what  powers  were  magnetic  in  their  life,  what  intentions 
were  dynamic  in  their  labors.  Commonplace  readers 
have  no  eves  perhaps  for  this  gold  that  is  treasured  in 
the  mine  of  every  true  book.  They  search  amusement 
in  it;  they  expect  pleasant  sensations,  and  in  their 
^p]ietite  for  the  unworthy  they  are  cheated  out  of  tru-> 
enjoyment. 

Books  may  turn  into  action;  words  may  take  on  per- 

3 


tonality.  Not  only  once  "in  the  bt'.u'inning  was  tlu.'  Wonl, 
and  the  Word  be'canio  flesli  and  dwelt  among  men." 
Similar  miracle,  if  miracle  it  l)o,  incarnation  of  idea 
in  life  takes  place  daily.  In  fact,  it  is  distinctive  of 
the  creative  mind,  to  transform  idea  into  personality, 
impulse  into  experiment,  and  conflict  into  vision. 

The  dramatist  certainly  holds  this  divine  appoint- 
ment, lie  bidding  to  his  aid  all  the  resources  that 
nature  has  provided,  the  eye,  the  ear,  the  mind,  pictures 
in  the  living  to  his  auditors  the  workings  of  a  theory  of 
life  which  he  believes  or  knows  to  be  fmidamental. 
The  stage,  therefore,  is  under  consecration  as  profound 
as  ever  was  temple  or  shrine.  The  church  too  has  occa- 
sionally lapsed  from  her  high  duty;  so  the  stage  has 
fallen  at  times  from  the  high  plane  assigned  to  it  in. 
the  economy  of  human  idealities.  But  on  the  whole  it 
may  be  said,  as  of  the  church  so  of  the  stage,  that  fidel- 
ity has  been  its  virtue.  The  mastcrworks  of  the  great 
dramatists,  they  who  still  speak  to  us  after  the  flood 
tides  of  passing  centuries,  have  indeed  proven  their 
divine  selection  by  the  fact  of  their  sur\'ival. 

Aeschylus  speaks  today  in  tones  as  ringing  as  he 
did  when  Greece  shouted  her  joy  to  him  in  gratitude 
for  vocalizing  what  she  felt  to  be  vital.  Shakespeare 
is  immortal,  because  his  is  the  dialect  of  the  true  hu^ 
manities,  and  these  are  independent  of  locality  and  tem- 
porality. Goethe  remains  a  prophet.  His  Faust 
will  stir  inquiry,  will  command  emotion,  will  energize 
intentions  until  the  crack  of  doom  announces  the  end 
of  all  life  and  things  on  our  shattered  globe. 

Wliat  be  the  vitalizing  purposes  of  the  modern  stage  ? 
I  would  not  survey  the  counterfeit,  the  caricature 
though  perhaps  it  holds  the  central  place  in  the  atten- 
tion of  the  general.        I  should  profane  this  hour  were 


I  to  detail  scenes  magnetic  merely  through  their  ob- 
scenities. But  the  man  of  this  day,  who  endeavors  to 
pass  through  life  with  open  eyes  for  the  realities,  who 
is  not  absorbed  by  the  daily  slave  work  that  necessity 
or  greed  has  placed  upon  his  shoulders,  must  recogniz- 
ing what  the  stage  tokens  and  what  its  functions  be, 
have  a  deep  anxiety  to  learn  and  to  understand  the 
reason  vrhy  the  modern  drama  is  busy  with  certain 
social  perplexities  and  is  attracted  to  the  presenta- 
tion of  certain  phenomena  in  modern  life  tlio  world  ail 
over  today. 

Is   it   true   that   they    who    by   genius    kissed,    have 
stood  in  the  morning  hour  on  the  highest  peak  of  vision, 
have  caught  the  infection  of  the  basest  ?  Is  it  true  that 
they  who  have  the  rare  ken  to  read  love  into  the  stars 
and  passion  into  the  plants,  have  all  of  a  sudden  been 
seized  with  the  fury  to  delve  in  mire  and  to  deal  with 
mud?       Fanatics  in  the  pulpit  have  so  held,  and  others 
echoing  opinions  not  of  their  own  fashioning,  have  oc- 
casionally emphasized  this  erroneous  view.       No,  the 
great  modern  playwrights  in  Italy,  in  Scandinavia,  in 
Germany  and  even  in  England,  nothwithstanding  her 
Puritanical  prudery  and  tradition,  have  turned  to  these 
darker  problems  not  because  they  would  pander  to  a 
morbid  appetite  for  filth,  but  because,  children  of  their 
day,  they  are  consciously  as  their  lesser  cotemporaries 
are  unconsciously,  under  the  influence  of  a  philosophy  of 
life  which  seems  to  justify  the  disregard  of  old  canons 
of  conduct  and  to  make  light  of  the  old  solemnities 
of  time-honored  moral  codes. 

The  obsession  of  our  day  has  been  for  many  circling 
decades  to  bridge  the  chasm  between  man  and  brute. 
This  desire  to  link  mind  to  mud  came  upon  us  in  con- 
sequence of  our  greater  familiarity  with  the  things  of 

5  • 


dust.        Wo  unrolled   tlic  curtciin    from  off  tlic  <kv  as 
never  generation  before  ours  had  dared  or  had  succeeded. 
We  deciphered  the  inscri))tions  of  the  rocks  in  a  way 
\vliich  h^ft  no  doubt  on  their  ultimate  meaning.     But 
doing  this  work  in  detail  and  piecemeal  we  outraged 
the  innate  desire  of  the  lunnan  soul  for  unity.     Know- 
ledge   not   unified    is  a   flirt   promising  joys   which  she 
never   bestows.     Laugh   as  luuch   as   you   may  in   your 
conceit  of  enlightenment,  at  the  presumption  of  religion 
to  build  a  system  of  thought  coherent  which  shall  em- 
brace the  visible  as  well  as  the  invisible !  Religion  m  do- 
i]ig  this  does  not  violate  man's  natural  leanins^s,  but  con- 
serves  them.     There  are  men  that  are  not  true,  there  are 
puppets  that  know  not  why  they  move;  there  are  souls 
SQ  dead  that  never  they  ask  why  and  whence  and  whither. 
No  true  man,  however,  but  feels  tlie  burning  desire  to 
have  rounded  out  in  fundamental  harmony  theory  of 
life  and  explanation  of  the  universe.       This  harmony 
religion  establishes.     It  is  not  a  presumption  on  the 
part  of  religion  to  'knmv.       The  agnostic  who  resigns 
himself  to  ignorance  outrages  the  human  soul.       Laugh 
as  much  as  you  may  at  the  metaphysist's  endeavor  to 
cast  light  into  obscurity  and  to  link  together  in  one 
M'stem  what  the  dust  seems  to  token  and  what  the  divine 
has  to  tell!     For  a  long  time  the  scientists  affected  to 
scorn  metaphysics,  though  none  of  them  but  found  the 
credentials  for  his  work  in  laboratory  or  on  observ^atory 
by  the  constructions  of  metaphysics.     There  are  somv:: 
awfully  learned    young    men,  or    old    men — they    are 
abundant,    especially    in    Jewish    circles, — who    having 
si})ped  the  light  wine  of  science,  affect  to  say  that  the 
realities  are  central,  while  theories  are  at  the  utmost  in 
the  periphery,  but  these  have  been  left  behind  by  the 
onward  march  of  lietter  information.      They  claim  to  be 

■      6 


m  tlie  van  of  progress,  and  as  snch  they  are  admired: 
but  in  sober  truth  they  bring  up  the  rear.  There  is  to- 
day no  scientist  but  ha,s  acknowledged  the  legitiiilacy  of 
metaphysics  and  its  necessity  for  his  own  work.  There  i.^ 
today  no  physicist  but  knows  that  when  he  sj^eaks  of 
force,  of  energy  or  life  even,  he  is  employing  meta- 
physical concepts.  There  is  today  no  astronomer  but 
sees  in  the  reyolutions  of  the  spheres  and  in  the  har- 
monies of  the  siderial  systems  more  than  methamat- 
ical  or  mechanical  evolution.  He  knows  that  1)(  h.ind 
mathematics  is  miud,  and  thus  confesses  that  teleology, 
or  the  theory  of  purpose  in  the  universe,  has  found  to- 
day again  credence  and  standing  in  the  palaces  of  the 
most  devoted  students  of  nature.  Metaphysics,  like 
religion,  is  merely  the  stammered  response  to  man's  in- 
born desire  for  harmony  of  knowledge,  for  unity  of  in- 
tention. 

But  natural  science,  having  found  mud  and  mind 
linked  together  has  attempted  to  build  up  its  own  philos- 
ophy. It  struck  as  its  keynote  the  concept  of  struggle. 
The  whole  world  is  a  battle  field.  On  a  large  scale  the 
contest  is  waged  on  the  heights.  Within  'small  com- 
pass it  is  fought  with  as  intense  a  ferocit^^  even  in  the 
little  globule  of  water.  The  tear  that  you  shed  js  an 
ocean  in  which,  so  to  speak,  battle  ships  sail  against 
battle  ships,  and  discharge  their  rapid  firmg  guns  at 
one  another.  The  whole  world,  whatever  is,  whatever 
lives,  is  under  the  law  of  conflict.  This  concept  cer- 
tainly admits  of  no  quibble.  It  has  found  the  key  to 
the  mystery,  if  not  of  being,  then  of  becoming.  Through 
conflict  men  conquer,  through  it  humanity  is  lifted  t«) 
higher  position  and  richer  potentialities. 

But  to  this  fundamentally  true  concept  of  the  univer- 
sality and  the  benevolence  of  conflict,  the  metaphysics 


of  llu'  natural  scii'iices  lias  added  aiiotlicr  idea  that 
in  this  conflict  universally  waged,  naturally  and  nec- 
essarily the  stronger  alone  survives.  Searchers  did  not 
pause  to  define  strength,  and  thus  they  jumped  at  the 
conclusion  that  physical  strength  or  depth  of  cunning 
is  the  decisive  force  which  wins  the  prize.  Once  under 
the  spell  of  this  unifying  idea,  they  like  the  systems  of 
former  days,  threw  the  light  of  their  theory  on  what 
was  obscure  and  pretended  to  hold  together  in  one  what 
seemed  to  be  disparate  and  separate.  They  drew  for 
moral  life  the  inference  that  strength  is  a  law  unto 
itself;  that  the  strong  man,  as  to  him  belongs  tlie  victory, 
is  under  no  obligation,  that  he  is  free  to  do  as  he  lists, 
unci  not  to  do  as  he  likes.  The  strong  man  is  beyond 
the  moral  and  the  immoral ;  good  and  evil  for  him  in  the 
alembic  of  his  strengih  are  dissolved  into  fancies.  The 
^•eak  may  perhaps  be  under  law,  but  the  strong  is  not. 
This  is  the  culminating  assertion  of  Nietzsche.  He 
is  typical  of  our  day.  Philosophies  are  not  bom  at 
haphazard ;  they  do  not  leap  out  because  a  brain  illumin- 
ated or  obfuscated  out  of  the  depth  of  its  own  quick 
virility,  or  halting  femininity  fancies  certain  things  to 
be  and  certain  factors  to  obtain.  Systems  are  built 
when  they  must.  Philosophies  come  as  projections 
of  often  subconscious  and  unconscious  tendencies  of  the 
times  in  which  they  are  cradled.  In  our  day  of  Darwin- 
ian notions,  when  the  struggle  for  existence  is  invoked 
as  the  ultimate,  not  merely  for  the  formula  explaining 
celestial  cjuantities  and  qualities,  but  for  the  inter- 
action of  social  forces  and  of  industrial  and  economic 
purposes — when  Pseudo-Darwinism  is  appealed  to,  to 
justify  anti-Semitism,  for  instance,  to  place  racialism  on 
a  high  pedestal  again — in  our  age  so  constituted  in  its 
intellectual  affectations  or  dispositions,  Nietzsche  is  the 

8 


natural  and  logical  exiDonent  of  the  practical  and  ideal 
interpretations  of  the  meanings  of  life  and  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  universe.  In  an  era  when  Bismarck, 
the  ^[an  of  Iron,  is  in  the  focus  of  national  idolatry, 
when  the  strenuous  life — with  guns  that  shoot — is  the 
fetish  to  which  nations  ])ow  the  apostolic  pronimciation 
of  the  canonical  value  of  strength  as  the  ultimate,  had 
to  come,  not  because  Nietzsche  happened  to  stumble 
upon  it,  but  because  he  grasps,  as  genius  always  does, 
and  concretes  and  crystalizes  the  notions  prevalent  and 
dominant  in  our  generation.  Nietzsche  preaches  that 
every  strong  man  is  a  law  imto  himself,  and  that  the 
strong  man  need  not  care  for  restrictions  that  traditions 
have  sanctified:  that  the  strong  man  certainly,  as- 
none  can  oppose  him  unless  he  be  stronger  tlian  he, 
has  the  right  to  live  himself  out  at  whatever  cost  to 
others.  Others  may  for  the  lack  of  strength  still  carry 
chains ;  the  strong  man,  as  far  as  his  strength  renders 
him  competent,  may  cast  away  the  fetters,  and  laugh  to 
scorn  priest  that  claims,  or  conscience  that  protests  that 
restrictions  are  sacramental.  His  highest  law  is  to  live 
himself  out. 

In  Nietzsche's  preachment  we  have  at  once  the  solu- 
tion of  the  riddle,  whence  the  peculiar  tendency  of  the 
modern  drama  to  dwell  on  marital  infelicities  and  in- 
fidelities; why  D'Anunzio,  Sudernmnn,  Hauptmann 
and  others  too  numerous  to  catalogue,  dip  their  pens  into 
ink  to  affirm  and  to  canonize  this  theory  of  certain 
natures'  divine  right  to  disregard  conventionalities  and 
even  consecrations.  What  Nietzsche  calls  the  Ueber- 
m^nsch,  the  over-man,  the  man  who  is  a  law  untoi  him- 
self, is  central  in  these  modern  plays. 

It  is  noticea])le,  however,  that  woman  is  cloaked  with 
the  attributes  of  over-humanity.     Knowing  the  pecul- 


iMi-ities  of  our  age,  no  one  will  bo  at  a  lo:?s  to  discern  the 
reason  why  as  a  rule  woman  is  placed  before  the  public 
in  this  role.  It  is  not  because  modern  writers  share  the 
old  prejudicie  that  woman  is  the  mother  of  all  evil. 
They  scorn  to  teach  that  the  part  assigned  to  the  Uel)er- 
mensch  is  evil.  Thev  do  not  share  the  French  cyni- 
cism which  advises  wherever  crime  is  perpetrated  the 
detective  to  look  for  the  woman  in  the  case.  '^Cherchez 
la  femmel''  is  not  the  polar  quest  that  guides  their 
course.  But  they  are  exponential  of  the  strongest 
drifts  of  recent  decades. 

Who  has  tugged  at  chains  so  strenuously  so  insistently 
in  these  days  as  has  woman?  Speak  of  the  endeavors 
of  labor  to  rise  to  freedom ;  the  struggle  on  the  part 
of  the  wage  earner  is  perhaps  more  dramatic  because 
it  operates  with  greater  battallions;  but  the  heat  of 
battle  cannot  be  measured  by  the  numbers  of  the  com- 
batants. j\Iany  a  fight  is  bitter  though  raging  between 
only  two.  A  duel  may  be'a  very  Gettysburg.  Woman 
h.as  been  pre-eminently  the  struggler  for  emancipation 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  She  has  urged  that  her 
humanity  was  denied  her.  And  with  that  peculiar 
fatality  that  seems  to  defy  rhythm  in  the  evolution  of 
ideas,  a  fatality  that  the  student  of  history  has  met  on 
ivery  page  in  the  story  of  the  intellectual  progress  of  the 
race,  from  the  "underhuman"  which  women  protest  has 
been  their  assigned  and  enforced  lot,  they  have  reached 
f>ut  for  the  ^^over-human."  In  keeping  with  this 
phenomenon,  the  master  dramatists  of  the  day  as  a  rule 
make  woman  the  representative  oracle  of  the  overhuman. 
It  is  woman  by  preference  that  in  the  modern  plays  leaps 
over  the  barriers  of  conventionalities  "dignified  in  the 
dialect  of  the  unprogressive  as  moralities." 

That  Northern  master  in  the  art  of  character  drawing 

10 


Ibseu.  himself,  one  is  tempted  to  say,  an  arctic  sun 
shining  above  the  horizon  for  on^  long  summer  day 
^nd  setting  in  twilightless  ^nnter  darkness  for  an  equally 
long  spell,  was  the  first  perhaps  among  modern  play- 
wrights of  distinction  to  predicate  of  woman  the  ^'over- 
human/''  His  Xora  of  the  Doll's  House  at  least  proph- 
ecies in  this  strain. 

To  theater  goers  as  well  as  to  the  readers  of  Ibsen's 
works  this  wife  who  discovers  that  she  no  lono-er  loves  the 
husband  with  whom  she  is  united,  is  a  familiar  figure. 
The  saner  among  us  I  dare  say  have  however  never  shed 
tears  over  her  fate.  We  have  not  sympathized  with  her 
impatience  at  the  trivialities  of  her  domestic  duties.  We 
simply  admired  the  great  actresses  that  were  able  to 
lend  some  semblance  of  reality  to  this  woman  dis- 
illusioned l)y  the  discovery  that  her  life  had  been  a 
blank  after  her  awakening  to  the  fact  that  what  her 
nature  entitled  her  to,  liad  not  come  to  her  share.  Her 
husband  failed  to  understand  her.  He  has  not  com- 
prehension for  the  greatness  of  her  sacrifice.  Domes- 
ticity crushes  her.  She  knows  herself  destined  for  a 
fuller  life.  In  her  arithmetics  of  what  she  has  wrought 
her  child  is  ignored.  She  leaves  her  husband  with  the 
specious  plea  that  the  child  will  be  looked  after  by  the 
imrse.  This  misunderstood  cramj^ed  Xora  gasping 
for  breath,  yearning  for  freedom  from  irksome  chains  is 
the  first  in  a  long  succession  of  /'Uebermenschen" 
of  the  female  sex  who  will  on  the  stage  not  bow  to  the 
law  sanctifying  and  sanctioning  the  conventionalities  or 
the  superstitions  or  the  prejudices  of  a  darker  age  and 
a  more  stupid  and  slavish  generation. 

It  does  not  matter  that  Ibsen  told  of  Xora's  irksome 
struggles  and  disappointment  at  a  time  when  Xietzsche's 
:sun  had  not  yet  risen  to  the  zenitli.       Tlie  affinity  of 

11 


intention  bet  wet  n  tiR'  Scandinavian  and  the  Teuton 
Titans  is  plain.  \'ain  have  been  all  attempts  to  invest 
with  tragic  pathos  the  fate  of  the  woman  running  away 
from  what  had  been  to  her  a  mere  doll's  house.  Even 
the  slamming  door  at  the  end  announcing  that  she  has 
gone  forth  to  her  freedom  fails  to  make  her  resolution 
heroic.  In  her  determination  to  abandon  child  and  hus- 
band passion  has  not  part.  This  circumstance  has  been 
explained  as  due  to  the  Northern  temperament  of  her 
intellectual  father.  But  to  whatever  cause  this  peculi- 
arity must  be  attributed  the  absence  of  this  element 
makes  her  step  all  the  more  difficult  to 
understand  and  to  justify.  Is  it  at  all 
reasonable  that  a  Avoman  should  leave  her  child  to 
the  care  of  strangers  merely  because  at  a  crucial  moment 
she  finds  herself  disappointed  in  the  man  whom  she 
took  for  better  or  for  Avorse  to  have  and  to  hold  for  her 
husband?  To  her  child  a  normally  constituted  woman 
would  have  clung.  In  fact  the  thought  of  the  child 
would  have  reconciled  her  to  duties  which  while  hard 
were  by  no  means  incompatible  wath  self  respect.  The 
more  closely  the  character  of  N'ora  is  inspected  the  more 
clearly  apparent  does  it  become  that  Ibsen  did  not  draw 
from  life.  He  clothed  a  theory  and  a  gospel  of  his  owji 
with  the  semblance  of  a  woman.  His  creation  lacks 
warm  blood  and  healthy  nerves.  She  is  one  of  the 
thousand  victims  of  hysteria  afflicted  with  a  false  con- 
ception of  what  individual  dignity  and  freedom  imply. 
Had  duty  not  been  a  complete  stranger  to  her  vocabulary 
none  of  the  foolish  misconceptions  upon  which  her  de- 
cision turns  would  have  arisen  in  her  mind.  As  it  is 
she  speaks  the  dialect  of  a  philosophy  that  never  appeals 
1o  a  woman  sound  in  body  and  sane  in  mind.  Ibsen 
has  failed  to  formulate  the  correct  answer  to  the  prob- 

12 


lein  which  he  pretends  to  analyze.  The  conflict  which, 
he  lodges  in  the  soul  of  Xora  is  artificial.  It  is  void 
of  seriousness.  It  displays  the  well  known  marks  of 
invention  for  stage  purposes.  The  psychology  upon 
.which  it  assumably  rests  is  false.  Xeither  pathos  nor 
passion  is  involved  therein.  We  have  in  wearisome 
langTiage  an  academic  dissertation  on  abstract  rights  in 
which  responsibility  and  maternal  instinct  alike  are 
forgotten  or  wilfully  overlooked. 

Deeper  understanding  for  psychological  forces  which 
often  compel  the  rupture  of  bonds  hallowed  by  morality 
is  sho^^^l  by  tlie  productions  of  recent  German  and 
Italian  dramatists.  If  the  intention  of  these  be  to 
preach  the  doctrine  that  ^'overmen"  have  the  natural 
right  to  live  themselves  out  they  at  least  concede  that  the 
"overhuman*'  which  brings  on  the  catastrophe  is  not 
rooted  in  chilly  reasoning  but  is  under  the  hot  iH'eath 
of  i^assion  obscuring  the  clearer  calmer  vision  of  re- 
flective mind.  In  this  regard  the  palm  belongs  with- 
out doubt  to  D'Anunzio.  His  heroes  are  not  puppets. 
They  are  moulded  of  flesh  and  blood.  Their  overheated 
heart  it  is  which  calls  for  freedom.  But  they  do  not 
reason  out  their  right  to  live  their  own  life  as  they 
list  without  regard  for  obligations  previously  incurred 
as  one  would  a  mathematical  proposition.  Passion  de- 
fies logic.  And  therefore  D'Anunzio  with  good  tact 
refuses  to  syllogize.  His  characters  wt  are  able  to 
understand  and  even  to  pity  though  it  is  plain  enough 
wherein  their  weakness  consists.  Even  passion  is 
meant  to  bo  held  in  leash.  Though  this  too  must  be 
said  that  often  he  who  has  fallen  before  the  temptation 
is  fundamentally  a  better  man  than  many  of  the 
straightlaced  automata  of  conventional  correctness  that 
know  not  the  fury  of  the  tempter.  This  may  be  distrust- 
is 


^d  a.s  a  dangerous  doctrine.  But  a  deeper  insiglit  into  the 
deptliS  of  tlio  luiiuan  soul  will  corroborate  the  inain 
contention.  Paul  Heyse's  Mary  of  Magdala  gospels 
tlie  theory.  The  fanatics  of  virtue  often  lack  love. 
Tlic  scarlet  woman  often  bosoms  a  heart  which  will 
flower  anew  as  soon  as  the  sunshine  of  a  sublime  faith 
melts  the  hard  rind  of  sensuality.  They  who  would 
cast  the  first  stone  ai:e  not  always  without  guilt.  Their 
souls  may  be  dead  or  never  have  been  touched  to  life. 
Tliey  are  irresponsive  to  the  invitations  of  a  love  whicji 
in  its  su])limity  seems  a  revelation  of  the  divine  while 
she  whose  body  has  been  tainted  by  lust  and  sin  may  be 
open  to  the  call.  Mary  of  Magdala  is  therefore  not  over- 
human.  She  is  transcend ingly  hmnan.  D'Anunzio's 
La  Gioconda,  however,  varies  the  familiar  theme  of  the 
fatality  or  freedom  if  you  so  choose  to  put  it,  of  Titanic 
souls.  The  sculptor  falls  violently  in  love  with  his 
model.  It  is  not  carnal  lust  that  makes  him  forget  the 
vows  he  exchanged  with  his  wife.  Xo,  his  model  has 
awakened  in  him  the  creative  flame.  As  she  sits  be- 
fore him  his  eyes  see  what  for  nuiny  struggling  years 
he  has  tried  in  vain  to  behold  and  his  hands  force  the 
marble  to  obedience  in  a  degree  before  unattained. 
lie  feels  that  from  this  young  woman  ])efore  him  has 
entered  into  his  being  something  which  gives  his  imagin- 
ation wings.  His  artistic  temperament  outruns  his 
conscience.  He  falls  to  awaken  to  the  bitter  reality  of 
his  undoing  when  it  is  too  late  to  retrace  the  fatal 
steps.  But  it  is  the  girl  that  will  not  relinquish  him. 
H  he  will  not  be  hers  alive  he  shall  be  hers  dead.  She 
{.ttempts  to  slay  liim.  He  is  saved  mere- 
ly by  the  unselfish  devotiofi  of  the  wife 
whom  he  has  wronged.  But  his  soul  has  flo\Mi  from 
him    nevertheless.     What  the   girl  in  a  later   interview 

14 


vritli  tlie  wife  puts  into  vehement  words  is  true.  Shr 
it  was  that  touched  to  genius  his  dormant  powers.  There- 
from she  draws  her  title  to  possess  him.  Hers  is  the 
right  of  o^^^lership  in  liim  and  his  work,  the  wonder- 
fiil  statue  to  which  she  was  the  inspiration.  Obligations 
others  than  tliese  based  upon  her  natural  rights  she  will 
not  respect  or  even  acknowledge.  She  w411  destroy  the 
statue.  .It  is  hers  as  is  he  who  created  it.  The  poor 
wife  again  tries  to  save  her  husband's  masterpiece.  The 
knife  that  would  have  multilated  the  marble  strikes 
her.  The  fiend  cuts  off  her  hands.  It  is  in  this 
wise  that  the  philosophy  of  the  natural  rights  based 
upon  power  presents  itself  through  the  prism  of  an 
Italian  mind. 

In  Germany  among  the  more  famous  exponents  of  the 
dogma  stands  first  Sudermann.  In  his  recent  play  "Es 
lebe  das  Leben"  in  English  version  entitled  ''The  joy 
of  living"  he  endeavors  to  justify  the  creed.  He  in- 
troduces us  to  the  life  of  the  higher  classes  in  modern 
Berlin.  Political  trappings  and  discussions  on  the 
morality  of  drueling  are  among  the  "properties"  he  brings 
on  the  stage.  Central  to  his  intention  is  the  character 
of  his  heroine,  the  wife  of  one  of  the  aristocrats  that 
make  their  bow  to  the  auditorium  to  give  semblance  of 
vitality  to  his  plot.  Married  when  very  young  and  like 
sc-  many  of  lier  class  without  being  touched  l)y  what 
the  French  call  ''la  gTande  passion"  the  early  years  of 
her  conjugal  life  were  peaceful  and  uneventful  and  her 
t^oul  found  satisfaction  in  the  unfolding  sweetness  of  her 
child's  nature.  But  one  day  there  crosses  her  path  one 
whom  to  see  was  for  her  to  know  that  he  was  the  com- 
plement to  her  own  deeper  self  that  she  belonged  to  hin> 
by  the  prior  right  of  her  soul's  needs  so  far  not  arouscil 
and  not  appeased  by  the  side  of  her  husband.       That 

15 


meeting  gives  lur  wliat  .-he  never  knew  before,  true 
happiness  and  the  sense  of  her  due.  ^\^lat  to  her  the 
marriage  vows?  Wliat  to  her  her  obligation  as  a  mother? 
She  knows  her  rights.  She  has  to  "live  herself  out.'^ 
The  inevitable,  to  speak  in  the  jargon  of  the  school, 
happens.  But  her  predestined  complement,  the  man 
through  whom  she  has  discovered  her  true  affinity  and  in 
whom  she  has  fomid  her  so  long  denied  fullness  of  life 
happens  to  meet  her  husband  and  become  his  friend. 
This  friendship  disturbs  finally  his  equanimity.  He 
feels  squirms  of  conscience.  Platonic  friendship  takes 
the  place  of  passionate  love.  Years  pass  by.  Political 
conjunctures  make  it  advisable  that  her  former  lover 
should  stand  for  a  seat  in  the  Reichstag  fonnerly  held 
by  her  husband.  She  knows  what  store  her  friend  sets 
1/y  political  success.  He  will  become  a  power  in  the 
state,  the  defender  of  virtue  and  the  people's  morals. 
She  puts  all  her  energies  into  the  political  campaign  lo 
achieve  for  him  the  anibitious  victory.  But  this  very 
political  activity  of  his  and  hers  is  their  undoing.  Some 
former  secretary  of  his  knows  of  the  past  illicit  relations 
Jjetween  her  and  her  friend.  The  catastrophe  ensues. 
Her  husband  is  estopped  from  avenging  his  outraged 
honor  by  an  appeal  to  the  code  of  the  pistol.  She  con- 
fesses ail  to  him  but  without  the  least  tinge  of  remorse. 
What  in  sober  truth  was  her  crime?  She  merely  followed 
the  imjDerious  impulse  of  her  nature.  This  to  do  was 
h.er  natural  right.  But  she  is  generous  enough  to 
make  way  with  herself  but  again  not  because  the  furies 
of  conscience  drive  her  to  self-dstruction.  No,  simply 
out  of  consideration  for  her  friend  who  gifted  as  few 
men  are  must  live  to  do  service  in  Parliament. 

Dramas  often  terminate  in  death  scenes.  Poetic  jus- 
tice seems  to  demand  this  unknotting  of  the  involved 

16 


plot.  Or  in  the  tragedies  of  profoimder  appeal  the 
old  Greek  ida  of  black  ''x\te/'  inexorable  Fate,  is  worked 
out  to  its  logical  conclusion  and  the  pathos  of  the  con- 
flict is  thus  heightened  by  the  fmitlessness  of  the 
strugo-le  in  whicTi  predestination  on  the  one  hand  and 
man's  desire,  remorse  or  hatred  on  the  other,  are  arrayed 
in  unequal  combat.  But  in  this  latest  work  of  Suder- 
mann's  neither  poetic  justice  nor  inexorable  fate  insists 
on  the  final  suicide.  The  woman's  "overhumanity''' 
alone  justifies  her  suicide,  as  it  does  her  attitude 
and  conduct  throughout.  She  is  superior  to  life  and 
the  obligations  it  entails.  Life  is  for  her  either  the 
opportunity  to  live  as  she  desires  or  it  is  an  empty  husk 
vrhich  at  her  o^ni  pleasure  she  may  throw  away.  It 
is  Xietzsche  without  even  a  figieaf  that  preaches  the 
sermon  from  the  first  act  to  the  last. 

But  shall  Xietzsclie  with  his  autocratic .  and  aristo- 
cratic moral  anarchism  pass  for  the  final  accent  in  the 
revelations  of  histrionic  art?  That  he  holds  forth 
^•f  rom  the  boards  that  signify  the  world"  as  the  Germans 
have  denominated  the  stage,  is  a  powerful  commentary 
on  the  preoccupation  of  our  generation.  *  But  the  day 
of  better  things  cannot  be  far  distant.  We  may  take 
c-ourage.  The  signs  are  not  wanting  that  the  intoxica- 
tion of  misapplied  Darwinian  formulae  is  giving  way  to 
soberer  valuations  of  the  distinctions  between  the  truly 
human  and  the  really  brutal.  Many  a  soul  is  crying 
out  in  the  darkness  for  a  clearer  light.  In  all  fields  of 
human  endeavor  the  seers  are  on  their  watchtower 
looking  out  for  the  brighter  morning.  The  brutal 
doctrine  of  force  is  rejected  even  by  statesmen.  Kip- 
ling's "Eecessional"  sings  with  truer  note  than  his 
^Vhite  man's  burden."  While  "overmen"  still  decree  the 
ooursG  of  commerce  and  industrv',  others  are  not  silent 

17 


that  call  for  roinarrying  power  to  responsibility.  Con- 
science with  its  one  and  ever  insistent  sacrament  "Duty"'' 
has  not  been  finally  silenced.  And  so  after  the  obses- 
sion of  this  Xietzsche  cult  will  have  passed  off,  the  stage 
also  will  again  thunder  fortli  the  nobler  truths  that  life 
is  even  for  the  strongest  responsibility  that  freedom  to 
do  as  one  lists  is  of  all  forms  of  slavery  the  worst  and 
most  degrading.  The  new  woman  is  not  she  that  like 
Nora  abandons  child  and  home  because  forsooth  she  has 
linked  her  life  to  that  of  one  that  fails  to  do  her  justice. 
She  will  not  slain  the  door  upon  her  child's  future  for  the 
sake  of  forcing  her  own  liberation.  'No  home  in  which 
a  true  womanly  w^oman  is  queen  is  a  dolFs  house.  Even 
its  trivialities  are  through  the  alchemy  of  duty  lifted 
into  tremendous  potencies.  No  woman-  w^ill  reason  as 
does  the  model  in  Gioconda.  Or  if  she  does  her  scar- 
let robes  will  not  be  regarded  as  the  ermine  of  heroic 
virtue.  No  woman  will  without  remorse  avow  such 
a  juisstep  as  Sudermann  assumes  one  of  noble  birth  will 
commit  simply  to  fill  her  life  with  joy  and  then  with- 
out shame  glory  in  her  conduct  and  finally  to  disem- 
barrass not  those  that  she  has  wronged  but  him  whom 
she  claims  for  her  o^vn  and  wdiom  she  has  grudgingly 
given  up  while  her  soul  is  still  aflame  with  unquenched 
thirst,  with  cynic  frivolity  end  her  life.  The  strong 
will  recognize  again  that  strength  is  not  a  patent  to 
license  but  an  obligation  to  be  more  loyal  to  the  law 
evolved  indeed  by  man  in  the  course  of  the  ages  but 
bearing  the  seal  of  divinity  all  the  more  impressively  be- 
cause it  carries  the  vital  truths  tried  and  found  pure 
gold  in  the  hot  furnace  of  human  pain  and  human  temp- 
tation in  the  crucible  of  human  shame  and  human 
remorse.  Our  religion  certainly  views  strength  and 
jiower  in  a  light  altogether  different  from  that  in  which 

18 


naturalism  and  Nietzsche  have  construed  their  import 
and  their  privileges.  Judaism's  one  solicitude  is  to 
make  men  human,  not  to  allow  a  few  to  overreach  them- 
selves under  the  instigation  of  their  conceit  of  being  over- 
human.  This  cry  for  fuller  and  freer  life,  this  plea  that 
strong  natures  must  and  may  live  out  their  life  as  their 
will  dictates  and  their  passion  requires,  of  course,  is  in 
answer  to  the  false  insistence  of  the  Church  that  nature 
is  corrupt  and  the  natural  man  is  under  the  curse  of 
sin.  Nietzsche  is  the  reaction  upon  the  morality  which 
Judaism  never  formulated  in  which  weakness  as  such  is 
canonized  and  stupidity  or  poverty  of  spirit  is  S3'no- 
nymed  with  saintliness.  Our  religion  has  always  in  its 
normal  moods  been  opposed  to  whatever  smacked  of 
asceticism.  Joy  was  its  undernote  and  it  quivered  in 
ever}'  chord  of  its  melodious  intonation.  But  the  joy 
of  living  which  our  religion  oifered  to  its  devotees'  was 
that  which  flowered  from  duty  well  performed,  from 
obligation  seriously  recognized.  It  tempered  the  hot 
breath  of  passion.  It  refined  the  lower  desires.  It 
harnessd  the  merely  physical  to  the  purposes  of  the 
spiritual.  It  proclaimed  the  Law  in  which  good  and 
evil  were  not  eliminated  or  placed  in  a  pla.ne  beyond 
which  the  strong  had  proceeded.  No,  evil  and  good, 
truth  and  falsehood  were  alternatives  which  m.an  could 
elect  and  through  the  choice  thus  made,  stren.gth  became 
either  a  blesvsing  or  a  curse  to  its  possessor.  The  Jewish 
woman  was  never  weak  in  the  sense  in  wliich  the  expon- 
ents of  this  modern  doctrine  of  animalism  would  have  us 
;  believe  all  women  are  that  continue  to  be  chained.  Such 
'-  freedom  as  Ibsen's  Nora  craved,  as  D'Anunzio's 
f.  model  insisted  on,  as  Sudermann's  Countess  claimed, 
Jewish  women  have  always  spurned.  Their  freedom 
was  the  liberty  of  doing  their  duty.     True   has   been 

19 


for  all  times  what  the  T?al)bis  predicate  of  the  evil  years 
of  Israel's  Egyptian  slavery.  Jewish  women  wrought  the 
liberation  of  their  people.  The  modern  drama  mirroi^s 
our  day's  aberrations.  Let  us  Jews  have  a  care  lest  they 
j)icture  also  our  conditions.  As  long  as  Jewish  ideals 
of  morality  shall  continue  to  be  sceptered  in  our  homes 
and  find  loyal  exponents  in  our  Synagogues  a  better, 
freer  and  nobler  life  will  be  ours  than  that  which  the 
new  playwrights  affect  to  hold  up  as  true  and  legitimate. 


20 


'ATTACKS  ON  JEV/S  AND  JUDAISM.' 


Lesson:     Chap,  iii.;  Book  of  EstLer 

It  is  not  the  fault  of  the  Jew  that  the  okl  oriental 
tale  incorporated  in  the  literature  of  the  ancient  He- 
brews, about  Esther  and  Mordecai,  retains  its  pathetic 
interest.     Thirty  years  ago  there  were  those  among  ns 
who  honestly  and  openly  were  of  the  opinion  that  the 
day  was  not  far  distant  when  Israel  would  learn  to  for- 
get the  story  of  his   persecution.     But  the  assurance 
then  treasured  has  been  rudely  dispelled.     As  in  dark 
medieval   days,   so   in  these  light  flooded   years   of   a 
new  century,  the  cry  is  heard  on  all  sides  echoing  the 
complaint  and  accusation  of  thei  old  Persian  vizier,  that 
the  Jew  is  a  stranger  in  the  lands  Avhere  he  has  been 
given  hospitality;  that  he  pursues  aims  and  ambitions 
distinctly  and  viciously  his   own,   emplopng  methods 
that  are  hostile  to  the  welfare  of  the  people  in  the 
midst   of   whom   he   dwells.      The   new   age   seems  to 
have  discovered  many  a  new  truth,  but  alas !  not  enough 
of  truth  to  correct  the   old  misconceptions  to   which 
the  Jew  has  been  exposed  and  of  which  he  has  been 
the  victim  ever  since  he  made  his  first  bow   on  the 
stage  of  time.     Xo  new  indictment  has  been  drawn; 
no  new  count  has  been  added  to  the  old  bill.    In  what- 
ever modern  language  the  charge  is  phrased  it  carries 
the  old  burden,   it  reiterates  the  familiar   accusation. 
In   view   of  this   constancy   of   prejudice,   it   behooves 
the  Jew  every  year  anew  on  those  days  when  fiction  or 


memory  speaks  to  him  of  persecution  baffled  and  of 
hatred  thwarted,  to  probe  to  the  roots  these  wearisome 
and  worrying  misconceptions,  to  analyze  the  reasons  oL' 
this  universal  misjudgment;  to  examine  into  his  own 
conduct;  to  verify  his  own  attitude.  If  there  be  in  his 
own  character  that  which  calls  for  amendment  it  is  his 
duty  to  set  about  remedying  the  defect.  But  if,  upon 
investigation  calm  and  dispassionate,  the  conclusion  is 
forced  upon  him  that  his  is  not  the  blame,  that  what 
the  world  calls  his  stubbornness  is  really  his  fidelity 
in  the  service  of  higher  ideals,  the  memory  which  speaks 
to  him  of  conflicts  erst  won  will  be  an  incitement  for 
him  all  the  more  to  strcngihen  the  foundations  of  his 
faith,  to  draw  from  the  lessons  of  the  past  new  vigor 
and  virility  for  the  contest  wrathfully  raging  in  the 
present.  To  this  purpose  I  would  have  you  dedicate 
with  me  the  ensuing  hour. 

The  old  yet  ever  new  accusations  against  the  Jew  may 
be  grouped  under  four  distinct  heads.  Each  caption 
indicates  an  impelling  error,  which  suggests  in  the  minds 
of  such  as  host  the  prejudice,  the  workings  through  the 
Jew  of  forces  inimical  to  the  best  interests  and  the 
holiest  intensities  of  the  higher  humanities.  Time 
will  not  permit  me  to  deal  with  all  four;  but  the  two 
that  more  than  the  others  are  in  the  forefront  of  at- 
tention I  ask  permission  to  present.  The  first  source 
of  prejudice  against  the  Jew  is  a  quasi  scientific  theory 
of  racial  distinctions.  That  the  Jew  constitutes  a  dis- 
tinct race  is  the  certainty  cherished  by  his  enemies. 
Less  emphasis  used  to  be  laid  on  the  distinctness  of  the 
racial  qualities  of  the  Jew  in  former  days.  That  thi'i 
clement  of  prejudice  has  become  very  prominent  in 
these  later  times  is  clearly  the  concomitant  of  the  new 
philosophy  claiming  to  be  based  upon  natural  sciences, 

2 


which  has   cast   an  unholy   spell   over   historians   and 
statesmen.     Far  be  it  from  me  to  discredit  the  groat 
achievements  wrought  by  the  young  sciences  busy  with 
the  secrets  of  the  heavens  and  earth.    If  the  latter  haK 
of   the   nineteenth   century   is   aureoled   in   glory,   the 
lustre  came   as   a  reward  of  assiduous  court  paid  bv 
master  minds  to  the  coy  genius  of  nature.     Our  mar- 
velous   perfection    in   technical   control    over   the    re- 
sources of  soil  and  sea,  is  clearly  the  outcome  of  our 
deeper  intimacy  with  the  world-building  energies  sweep- 
ing through  eternity.     But  in  the  wake  of  this  victory 
over  reluctant  Xature,  has  arisen  a  philosophy  which 
robs  man  of  the  regal  crowS.     Under  the  passion  for 
unity    which   is    characteristic   of   the   bent    of   mind 
anxious  to  uncurtain  the  arcana  of  nature,  the  thought 
leapt  out  in  fatal  fury  that  mud  was  equal  to  mind, 
and  man  of  one  destiny  as  were  the  microbes.     Men 
gloated  over  and  gloried  in  the  kinship  thus  established 
between  the  human  and  the  animal.     And  out  of  this 
mood  sprang  the  vitality  of  the  idea  that  race  is  a  deter- 
minant of  the    humanities.       In     the     flush    tide    of 
joy  at  having  discovered  a  principle  to  establish  the 
relative  ranking  of  the  various  and  varied  components 
of  the  human  family,  the  prophets  of  the  race  Shibbo- 
leth overlooked  that  in  strict  scientific  parliance  race 
was  vague  and  indefinite.      This    very    lack    of    pre- 
cision made   the   Fetish   all  the  more  popular.     His- 
torians and  politicians  proclaimed  the  new  divinity  and 
invoked  it  to  lend  dignity  to  their  analysis  of  the  moving 
impulses   underlying   the   achievements    of   past   time 
as  well  as  the  ambitions  still  aflame  to  reconstruct  the 
map  of  the  world.     Materialism  had  contended   that 
thought  depended  upon  cerebral  chemistry.  Character 
now  was  declared  to  be  the  precipitate  of  blood  qualities. 

3 


To  the  undoing  of  the  true  bond  of  humanity  this  no- 
tion of  racial  distinctions  was  called  to  the  witness 
stand.  Eecrudescence  of  hatred  fanned  into  a  con- 
suming flame  withering  tenderer  flowers  of  sentiment 
and  drying  up  the  springs  of  sympathy  marked  the 
spread  of  the  fateful  creed.  Blood  decides  quality^, 
blood  assigns  rank  in  the  human  family.  So  ran  its 
destructive  insistence.  Small  wonder  that  the  emphasis 
so  beautifully  put  in  the  opening  chapters  of  Genesis, 
on  the  unity  of  the  race,  was  speedily  blurred,  Eacial 
lines  mark  men  as  belonging  to  different  groups.  This 
uncertain  note  of  the  great  anthropologists  smaller 
men  twisted  into  the  assertion  that  these  vague  dis- 
tinctions settled  the  question  of  the  relative  superiority 
or  inferiority  of  the  sons  of  man.  Soon  the  Aryan  was 
heard  declaiming  that  his  blood  marked  him  the  pre- 
destined leader  of  all  mankind.  To  this  conceit  of  the 
predestined  superiority  of  the  Aryan  the  re-rise  of 
distrust  against  the  Jew  must  be  traced.  Tlie  Jew 
of  course  may  not  boast  of  Aryan  blood.  Tlie  theory 
declares  him  to  be  a  Semite.  What  matter  that  this 
thesis  is  open  to  serious  doubt?  Has  passion  ever 
weighed  reason  or  evidence?  But  lot  for  argument's 
sake  the  position  be  conceded.  Is  the  further  con- 
clusion justified  that  because  of  different  blood  the 
Jew  is  the  inferior  of  his  Aryan  co-tenant  of  earth? 
Stronger  proof  were  needed  than  the  hypothesis  offers  to 
substantiate  the  insistence.  Still  this  Aryan  conceit 
found  willing  acceptance  and  violent  expression  es- 
pecially in  Germany.  In  that  land,  once  the  glorious 
home  of  Kant  and  Lessing,  to-day  anthropology  is 
cited  into  court  to  justify  treason  to  all  that  Kant 
held  holy  and  Lessincr  proclaimed.  Formerly  and  else- 
where anthropology  was  content  to  register  differences 

4 


in  color,  stature,  and  physiognomy  observed  among 
men.  Or  anthropology  collected  information  concern- 
ing the  habitat,  the  mental  conceits,  the  religious  no- 
tions of  the  various  components  of  the  human  race.  But 
to-day  from  being  a  descriptive  science,  anthropology 
is  forced  to  assume  the  role  of  a  normative  regulator. 
The  latest  book  on  anthropology  to  make  a  stir,  is  en- 
titled ^Tolitical  Anthropolog}^"  To  race  qualifications 
are  traced  by  this  new  branch  of  the  science  of  anthro- 
pology capability  for  self  government  and  predisposi- 
tion for  slavery.  If  in  certain  sections  of  the  world 
political  initiative  is  found  to  be  active  this  political 
anthropologist  ascribes  this  to  the  racial  constitution 
of  the  inhabitants.  Where  on  the  other  hand,  this 
power  of  political  self-determination  is  found  absent, 
distinction  of  race  is  pressed  into  service  to  explain  the 
difference.  Formerly,  you  remember,  climate,  topogra- 
phy, the  configuration  of  the  land,  the  proximity  of 
the  sea,  the  height  of  mountains,  the  depression  of  val- 
leys used  to  figure  in  the  equation  of  political  capacity 
or  its  reverse.  But  this  theory  advanced  by  Buckle  and 
others  has  now  entirely  been  crowded  to  the  rear;  no 
longer  are  the  mountains  invoked;  nor  are  the  meads 
brought  forward;  no  longer  is  influence  credited  to 
stars,  or  to  storms,  to  seas  or  to  rivers.  Blood  alone 
is  given  the  right  to  account  for  distinctions  of  mind, 
of  morality,  of  political  sagacity  or  political  incompe- 
tence. Only  the  Aryan  race,  these  new  anthropologists 
tell  us,  is  capacitated  by  blood'  for  the  progressive  work 
of  subjugating  nature.  All  other  races  are  fated  to 
passivity.  And  am^ong  these  that  lack  the  initiative 
genius,  the  Semite  again  by  his  blood  is  gifted  to  drav/ 
profit  unearned  from  the  hard  labor,  the  inventive  in- 
genuity of  the  Aryan  race.    From  this  ingenious  theory 

5 


the  conclusion  is  drawn  that  the  Aryans  are  by  God, 
or  by  nature,  appointed  the  rulers,  while  the  Sem- 
ites are  marked  in  the  laboratory  of  nature  herself  as 
dan^jjerous  to  progress,  a  dissolving  element  against 
which  precautions  must  be  taken. 

From  the  contiguity  and  contact  of  unequal  races 
perils  arise  for  the  race  of  superior  quality.  Admixture 
of  baser  blood  is  to  be  apprehended.  For  the  effect  of 
such  intermingling  always  has  been  the  deteriorating 
of  the  quality  of  the  original  superior  race.  To  pre- 
vent this  uncanny  eventuality  must  therefore  be  the  con  • 
cern  of  wise  statescraft.  Miscegenation  will  prove  the 
deathblow  to  original  inventiveness  and  capacity  only 
vested  in  the  pure  stock.  Tlie  Semite  being  of  inferior 
blood  his  presence  among  the  Aryan  peoples  is  a  grave 
menace.  Hencc|,  prudence  would  suggest  that  the 
Semite  must  be  removed ;  and  where  this  is  impossible, 
that  he  must  be  placed  under  such  restrictions  as  will 
under  the  play  and  sweep  of  natural  causes  tend  to 
make  his  extermination  an  assured  fact  a  few  centurici 
hence. 

This  has  been  the  program  of  political  reactionary 
parties  in  Germany  for  many  a  century.  ISTow  it  struts 
forth  in  the  plumage  of  a  scientific  theory.  It  has 
met  with  willing  acceptance  by  men  of  the  Plehve  type, 
the  modern  Hiaman^s  of  Russia.  Yea,  a  few  yf^ars  ago 
the  jargon  of  this  quasi  scientific  conviction  found  the 
French  people  in  a  receptive  mood ;  if  then  to  our  con- 
sternation even  France  was  on  the  point  of  forgetting 
her  glorious  traditions  and  memories,  the  sad  phe- 
nomenon is  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  th.o  havoc 
wrought  directly  and  otherwise  by  this  pseudo-scientific 
doctrine  which  makes  race  the  determinant  of  human 
values 


In  the  face  of  this  prejudice  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
futile  the  means  are  employed  by  some  cowardly  Jews 
to  escape  beinor  touched  by  its  breath.  Mind  you,  it  is 
race  that  determines  superiority  and  inferiority.  One 
cannot  correct  his  race.  Baptism  will  not  wash  away  the 
stain  of  the  inferior  blood;  change  of  name  will  not 
modify  the  quality  of  the  life  elixir.  Political  creed 
is  ineffective  as  well.  Blood  is  the  decisive  element, 
and  it  is  constant.  Even  intermarriage  will  not  help 
the  matter,  for  according  to  this  anthropology,  the 
superior  race  is  impotent  to  lift  the  inferior  to  it^. 
heights.  Wherever  the  inferior  race  is  allowed  to  inter  • 
mingle  with  its  better,  the  nature  of  the  superior  com- 
ponent is  affected  for  the  worse.  Mix  white  and  black, 
the  result  is  not  a  better  white,  a  nobler  black,  but  a 
despicable  Mulatto,  who  exhibits,  so  they  say,  all  the 
evil  qualities  of  his  progenitors,  to  the  elimination 
even  of  the  possible  factors  of  strength  originally  within 
the  grasp  of  the  inferior  partner  to  this  unholy  union. 
Allow  Aryan  and  Semite  to  mix;  the  Aryan  loses  and 
the  Semite  cannot  gain.  Hence  it  is  essential  thai 
the  modern  Aryan  be  on  his  ,sruard  against  the  insidious 
attacks  planned  and  plotted  by  the  Semites,  who  would 
open  wide  the  doors  to  the  undoing  of  the  Aryans  by 
choosing  wives  or  husbands  from  the  nobler  stock. 

This  consistent  Aryan  brutalism  is  without  equivoca- 
tion avowed  by  a  larcre  portion  of  modem  German  and 
European  anti-Semites.  They  have  maintained  it  in 
parliament,  and  emphasized  it  from  public  platforms, 
that  the  baptized  Jew  is  still  a  Jew;  they  have  pro- 
claimed it  in  parliament,  and  have  importuned  the 
public  authorities  to  act  upon  their  protest,  that  the 
descendant  of  a  mixed  marria.sre  one  of  whose  parents 
is  a  Semite  and  the  other  an  Aryan,  shall  not  be  cred- 

7 


ited  with  Aryan  distinction,  but  be  rated  and  ranked 
vnth  the  inferior  Semites.  It  must  be  admitted  that 
the  logic  of  this  demand  cannot  be  disputed  as  soon  as 
the  chief  premise  is  conceded.  Tlie  theory  itself  has, 
especially  during  the  last  four  3^ears,  gained  many  ad- 
herents, largely  because  a  very  fascinating  book,  writ- 
ten seemingly  in  a  purely  scientific  spirit,  has  unsettled 
opinions  and  weakened  doubts.  I  refer  to  the  famous — 
or  shall  I  say,  infamous? — work  by  Houston  Stewart 
Chamberlain,  "Tlie  Foundations  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century."  In  it  Chamberlain  operates  with  a  free 
hand  with  the  concepts  of  modern  anthropology.  While 
convinced  that  certain  Aryans  are  predestined  for  ex- 
cellence, he  would  qualify  materially  the  scope  of  the 
general  thesis.  For  this  universal  Aryanism  w^ould 
include  many  races  or  nations  that,  according  to  his 
Teutonic  chauvinism,  should  be  denied  the  glory  of  the 
foreordination.  He  modifies,  therefore,  the  Aryanism 
of  this  modern  school  of  anthronologists  by  introducing 
a  new  terminology  and  a  new  principle  of  selection. 
His  predestined  group  he  denominates  the  Germanic- 
Celtic  race.  To  it  he  ascribes  every  act  of  which  his- 
tory has  recorded  the  beneficial  influence,  making  for 
advancement,  for  libert}^,  for  civilization.  This  Ger- 
manic-Celtic aggregate  he  rates  as  the  one  factor  and 
force  in  every  movement  upward,  in  science,  religion, 
culture,  commerce,  industry  and  what  not.  He  would 
have  his  ""chosen  people"  be  on  their  guards  against 
the  Semite,  who  will,  unless  checked,  vitiate  the  blood, 
and  thus  will  bring  to  an  inglorious  end  the  rise  of 
mankind  conditioned  on  preserving  in  absolute  purity 
this  stock  of  energetic  men  of  toil,  of  inventors,  pioneers, 
of  men  who  have  changed  the  surface  of  the  earth  and 
snatched,   Prometheus   like,   from   the   stars   the   vital 

S 


spark  of  life  and  thouglit.  Houston  Stewart  Cham- 
berlain would  not  have  had  so  many  readers,  and  would 
have  not  found  such  ready  credence  had  not  the  erratic 
genius  on  the  throne  of  Germany  found  in  the  words 
and  contentions  of  this  Englishman  writing  in  German 
a  note  quivering  in  harmony  with  a  predisposition  of 
his  own.  The  German  emperor  made  the  curious 
book  popular.  Purchasing  a  number  of  copies,  he  pre- 
sented them,  with  his  autograph  dedication,  to  his 
cronies.  I  am  surprised  that  a  certain  American  set 
has  not  yet  made  the  book  their  newest  fetish ;  for  no 
American  has  been  admitted  into  the  august  presence 
of  the  German  emperor  during  the  last  few  years,  but 
was  presented  with  a  copy.  I  am  prepared  to  hear  that 
our  Women's  Clubs  will  have  classes,  to  study  Houston 
Stewart  Chamberlain's  book.  Perhaps  they  are  waiting 
till  an  English  translation  appears ;  but  as  the  book  is 
very  bulky  it  is  not  likely  that  an  English  publishing 
house  will  venture  on  the  enterprise.  Still  the  moment 
it  is  translated  into  English  we  may  make  ready  for 
its  echoes  from  both  orthodox  and  liberal  pulpits.  Tlie 
likelihood  is  stronor  that  then  here  bv  a  certain 
ilk  it  will  be  dinned  into  our  ears  that  the  Germanic- 
Celtic  forces  have  carried  the  whole  burden  of  humanity 
while  the  Semitic  hordes  have  been  the  parasites  fat- 
tening on  the  labors  of  their  nobler  Germanic-Celtic  pro- 
ducers. Ignoble  envy,  base  passion  are  the  inspiration 
of  the  modern  as  they  were  of  the  old  Haman's.  Bui 
being  veiled  behind  a  cloud  of  hazy  would-be  scien- 
tific notions,  the  motive  of  the  modern  is  less  plain 
than  was  that  of  the  older;  and  his  method  is  all  the 
more  dangerous. 

In  this  situation,  what  becomes  our  duty?  Those 
of  you  who  have  been  regularly  among  my  hearers 
13     "^  Q  " 


will  anticipate  my  answer.  I  must  again  expose  myself 
to  being  charged  with  repeating  myself.  But  I  am  not 
Shakespeare.  Nor  am  1  rich.  Shakespeare,  I  know, 
never  repeats,  and  rich  merchants,  I  must  believe,  are 
always  original.  That,  at  least,  I  learned  from  a  plaj 
I  recently  attended  while  in  New  York.  The  central 
personage  on  the  stage  is  a  multimillionaire  whose  only 
argument  is,  "I  am  rich."  On  the  score  of  his  wealth, 
he  presumes  to  be  competent  to  do  anything,  and  tu 
be  exalted  above  all  the  conventionalities  and  limita- 
tions that  bind  common  clay.  Upon  the  theory  of  thi^ 
play  I  presume  that  one  who  is  rich  is  never  under  the 
necessity  of  repeating  himself.  The  w^ealthy  are  always 
original.  But  as  I  am  neither  rich  nor  Shakespeare, 
I  must  occasionally  repeat;  and  to-day  I  shall  repeat 
a  very  familiar  contention  of  mine :  In  the  face  of  thi.^ 
new  racial  conceit  we  Jews  must  have  a  double  care  not 
to  fall  into  the  error  of  our  enemies.  There  has  been 
Semitism  as  obnoxious  as  ever  was  Aryanism.  This 
Semitisni  has  found  voice  in  Synogogue,  and  in  Jewish 
circles  at  times  in  a  pitch  that  goes  far  to  explain  and 
to  excuse  the  extravagances  of  counter  Aryanism.  The 
Jew  has  been  invoked  time  in  and  time  out,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  as  the  most  wonderful  type  of  hu- 
manity ;  and  that  not  on  the  ground  that  he  was  gifted 
with  mentality,  or  had  been  disciplined  to  keener  mor- 
ality; not  because  his  history  marked  him  a  hero — the^e 
lines  if  at  all  were  urged  so  faintly  as  to  become  im- 
perceptible in  the  picture.  But  with  all  the  greater 
5- tress  was  tlie  *^''pure  blood"  of  the  Jew  brouglit  forward. 
.Whatever  distinction  was  credited  or  claimed  revolved 
around  the  purity  of  the  race  to  which  all  other  excel- 
lencies were  held  secondary,  if  not  regarded  as  conse- 
quences thereof.     Hence  the  appeal  ever  iterated  and 

10 


urgent  to  guard  at  all  hazard  this  precious  unequaled 
purity  of  the  stock.  Hence  the  cry  against  inter-mar- 
riage. Hence  on  the  part  of  men  and  women  who 
nabitually  sneer  at  Synagogue,  and  professedly  are  be- 
yond the  highest  outlooks  of  Israel's  religion,  the  strong- 
est opposition  to  any  step  that  might  tend  in  the  di- 
rection of  rendering  the  purity  of  this  exceptional 
blood  less  intense  than  their  racial  conceit  imagines  it 
is.  As  long  as  the  Jew  prates  about  his  blood,  as  long 
as  the  Jew  refers  to  his  race,  to  the  neglect  of  the  spirit- 
ual elements  involved  in  Jewish  birth,  he  cannot  be 
surprised  that  the  larger  world  takes  up  the  challenge 
and  answers  his  boast  with  a  still  more  emphatic  declar- 
ation that  Semitic  blood  is  not  of  as  fine  a  composition 
and  preordained  to  as  effective  a  potency  as  is  that 
throbbinsf  in  the  blue  veins  of  a  true  and  uncontam- 
inated  Aryan. 

Eacial  chauvinism  is  the  foam  cresting  the  wave  of 
modern  naturalism.  Grant  that  man  is  only  a  brute, 
then  the  quality  of  his  blood  detern^ines  his  rank.  This 
inevitably  leads  to  conflicting  claims.  Pot  would  not 
be  quite  as  black  as  Kettle,  while  Kettle  would  pass  for 
a  nobler  aristocrat  than  Pot.  Houston  Stewart  Cham- 
berlain in  sober  truth  is  giving  Semitic  Chauvinists  a 
Roland  for  their  Oliver.  Semitic  presumption  neces- 
sarily arouses  Aryan  pretentions.  In  the  presence  of 
this  rampant  racialism,  modesty  befits  the  Jew.  A 
truce  in  the  midst  of  Jewry  to  all  high  flown  declama- 
tions about  the  Jewish  blood ! 

^y^ut  if  this  racialism  is  the  main  source 
whence  prejudice  flows  forth  a  turbulent  and 
turbid  tide;  if  it  is  the  arsenal  where  to-day  hatred 
finds  stacked  its  pointed  and  poisoned  spears ;  the  older 
jargon  of  distrust  has  not  been  forgotten  and  often  it;s 

11 


venomous  vocabulary  may  be  heard  in  hif^h  and  low 
places.  Nationalism  is  the  name  of  this  older  sister  of 
modern  racialism.  Tlie  Jew  constitutes  a  distinct  na- 
tion. This  has  been  the  cry  throughout  the  circling 
ages.  It  is  still  the  fond  conviction  of  the  Drumont's, 
the  Stoocker's  of  modern  days,  as  it  was  the  artfully 
worded  plea  of  their  prototype,  the  Haman  of  our 
story.  In  the  verse  that  we  read  the  grand  vizier' re- 
quests the  king  to  give  him  power  over  the  Jews,  on 
the  ground  that  they  constitute  a  people  scattered 
throughout  the  vast  provinces  of  the  realm,  whom  trie 
monarch  might  well  exterminate  without  risk  of  loss 
to  himself  as  they  refuse  to  recognize  the  royal  authority 
living  apart  from  his  other  subjects  and  obeying  laws 
of  their  own. 

Now,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  at  one  time  the 
Jews  w^ere  a  nation.  But  their  political  nationality  came 
to  an  end  wdien  the  state  and  temple  fell.  Certainly 
wdien  Bar  Kokba's  rise  against  Hadrian  was  quenched 
in  a  torrent  of  martyr  blood.  I  am  within  the  bounds 
of  truth  when  I  say  that  wdth  the  crushing  of  this  last 
rebellion  against  Rome  and  fate,  Jewish  political  na- 
tionality changed  from  being  an  actual  fact  into  a  po- 
tential hope,  sustaining  perhaps  the  people  in  the  dis- 
persion by  a  ray  of  light  recalling  departed  glory  in 
the- vision  of  future  restoration.  And  this  vision  took 
on  all  the  intenser  glow  because  the  nations  would  not 
admit  into  their  nationality  the  scattered  members  of 
the  extinct  Jewish  political  nationality.  In  liberal 
pulpits,  the  story  is  popular  which  puts  the  blame  on 
the  Jew  that  the  process  of  assimilation  has  been  re- 
tarded, as  it  was  he  that  refused  to  plunge  into  the 
mightier  current  of  national  life  flooding  and  flowing 
round  about  him.     This  view  is  a  wanton  perversion 

12 


of  the  actual  facts.  The  Jews  long  before  their  state 
had  tumbled  had  made  the  honest  effort  in  certain  sec- 
tions of  the  world  to  sink  their  political  nationality  into 
the  mightier  stream  of  the  national  life  by  which  they 
were  surrounded.  Greek  Judaism  had  arisen  even  when 
the  temple  was  still  standing.  The  Jews  in  Alexandria 
had  become  so  thoroughly  Greek  that  for  them  Hebrew 
idioms  and  the  concepts  expressed  by  them  had  almost 
lost  intelligibility.  They  were  Greeks  in  custom^  Greeks 
in  sympathy,  Greeks  in  ambition.  The  only  line  of 
cleavage  between  them  and  their  Greek  neighbors  was 
religion.  If  in  the  medieval  days  the  Jews  did  not 
follow  this  example,  theirs  is  not  to  blame.  Medieval 
society  pretended  to  rest  on  the  pillars  of  the  Christian 
church.  This  position  of  necessity  barred  out  the  non- 
Christian.  The  Jew  had  to  be  excluded;  he  had  to  be 
crowded  back ;  he  was  forced  to  become  an  empire  within 
the  empire^  a  society  within  society.  The  Ghetto  arose 
with  all  that  implies;  but  it  was  not  the  Jew  who  pri- 
marily enclosed  it  with  impassable  walls. 

Perhaps  one  modification  must  be  made.  There  was 
an  element  in  Jewish  thought  that  made  for  meeting 
half  way  this  intention  of  medieval  society.  Talmudism 
erected  its  bulwarks;  the  Talmudic  scheme  fortified  t'le 
ramparts.  It  drew  the  line  between  the  Jew  and  the 
non-Jew  effectively.  But  this  Talmudism,  upon  closer 
inspection,  will  reveal  itself  largely  influenced  by  the 
tendencies  without  Judaism.  It  was  devised  for  defense, 
rather  than  for  defiance.  It  preserved  because  the  world 
plotted  to  destroy  Judaism.  The  distinction  must  be 
kept  in  mind  between  disappearance  and  assimilation. 
To  destroy  the  Jew  and  silence  his  spiritual  message  was 
indeed  the  ambition  of  the  medieval  church  and  state. 
This  conspiracy  the  Jew  had  to  resist  and  thwart,  for 

13 


the  sake  of  tlio  spiritual  protest  which  it  was  his  to 
point;  and  Tahniidism  served  this  purpose,  though  in- 
cidentally it  culminated  in  a  rigid  system  of  segregation 
assumed  by  the  Jew.  Exclusion  was  necessary  if  Juda- 
ism was  to  be  preserved  in  the  conditions  then  pre- 
vailing. But  when  the  nineteenth  century  dawned  the 
Jew  himself  hastened  to  lay  low  the  walls;  it  was  the 
Jew,  in  German}^,  in  France,  in  England,  that  in- 
sisted upon  being  reco,gnized  as  one  of  this  modem  po- 
litical nation.  The  modern. nations  after  the  French 
and  American  revolutions  emancipated  themselves  from 
the  thought  that  credal  religion  was  their  fundamental 
support.  The  modern  nations  are  not  Christian  in  the 
technical  sense  of  the  world;  therefore,  they  do  not  by 
sheer  logic  exclude  the  non-Christian,  be  he  Jew,  Mo- 
hammedan, Buddist,  Agnostic,  or  atheist.  The  moment 
the  world  had  weaned  itself  of  the  medieval  conceit  the 
Jew  made  ready  to  step  out  of  his  segregation.  He 
was  certain  that  political  JeAvish  nationalism  was  an 
anachronism.  ITnder  this  convictioij,  he  demanded  his 
rights  as  a  citizen  of  the  new  states.  Tlie  outcome  of 
this  agitation  was  the  gradual  emancipation,  as  it  is 
called,  of  the  Jews  in  modern  Europe.  The  recognition 
of  the  right  of  the  Jew  to  citizenship,  with  all  that  it 
implies,  was  from  the  very  first  regarded  as  axiomatic 
in  our  own  dearly  beloved  America. 

Modem  nationalism,  however,  has  been  at  work  to 
undo  what  Eicsser  and  his  yokemates  achieved.  The 
nationalism  of  the  medieval  days  was  religious  in  t*^^ - 
ture.  The  new  nationalism  is  not  religious,  it  is  racial. 
Its  cry  is ;  France  for  the  French ;  Germany  for 
the  Germans ;  America  for  the  Americans  But  who  i^ 
French?  Who  German?  Who  American?  In  France, 
in  Germany,  they  reason  that  race  and  nation  are  ex- 

14 


cliano-eable  terms.  Therefore  the  Germau  nationalists 
in  theory  identify  German  with  and  limit  its  scope  to 
Teuton,  though  if  the  test  were  a^Dplied  to  the  German 
j^eople  of  to-day,  very  few  would  be  found  to  square  with 
the  restrictive  definition.  Though  Treitzschke  and  oth- 
ers have  done  their  best  to  spread  the  erroneous  theory, 
the  German  nation  is  not  Teutonic.  The  Teutonic  by*  no 
means  is  numerically  the  preponderating  element.  Still 
the  theory  served  to  cloak  in  patriotic  guise  the  desire 
to  expel  the  Jew.  Here  was  semblance  of  justification 
for  the  insistence  that  a  Jew  cannot  be  a  German ;  a  Jew 
cannot  be  a  true  Frenchman. 

"What  in  the  presence  of  this  prejudice  against  the 
Jew,  a  prejudice  based  upon  modern,  nationalism,  is  the 
duty  of  the  Jew?  I  for  my  part  do  not  scruple  to  declare 
it  to  be  our  all  the  more  sacred  obligation  to  reject  the 
specious  theory.  Jewish  nationalism  adopts  the  fun- 
damental contention  and  is  therefore,  a  dangerous  in- 
dulgence to  be  guarded  against. 

The  saddest  feature  is  that  the  Jew  has  himself  caught 
the  infection.  The  Jew  has  himself  been  led  astray  by 
the  glittering  generalities  of  nationalism;  and  we  have 
be-en  blessed  by  a  renaissance  of  Jewish  nationalism, 
vulgarly  known  as  Zionism.  If  that  movement  were 
merely  a  concerted  attem]ot  to  ease  the  fate  and  lot 
of  the  Eussian,  Eoumanian,  or  Galician  Jews,  none  of 
us  could  object.  But  it  spurns  to  be  philanthropic. 
It  pretends  to  stand  for  the  consummation  of  the 
Jewish  destiny.  It  is  based  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  Jew  to  be  Jew  must  belong  to  the  Jewish  nation. 
So  great  has  been  the  fatal  influence  of  this  doctrine 
that  men  who  thirty  years  ago  were  in  the  lead  of 
those  that  insisted  upon  the  de-nationalization  of  Juda- 
ism, to-day  have  become  enthusiastic,  fanatical  adher- 

15 


cnts  and  advocates  of  Zionism  even  in  America.  Tlio 
onl}^  excuse  for  this  is  the  desperate  disillusioning  that 
has  come  upon  humanit_y,  and  upon  the  Jew;  the 
universal  despair  of  ideals.  This  JeAvish  nationalism 
is  the  acknowledgment  that  all  our  hopes  and  all  our 
visions  of  a  humanity  based  upon  other  elements  than 
force,  are  chimerical.  The  Jew  must  not  fall  into  the 
error  of  the  nationalistic  anti-Semite.  We  can  under- 
stand the  motives  of  a  young  German  Jew  if  he  heeds 
the  call  of  the  Zionists,  for  in  Germany,  contrary  to 
law  and  to  constitution,  he  is  after  all  only  a  German 
by  tolerance,  a  German  deprived  of  certain  privileges, 
while  every  obligation  is  laid  on  him.  Pie  is  not  per- 
mitted to  become  a  commissioned  officer  of  the  army 
whether  in  the  active  service  or  in  the  reserve  ranks. 
The  judiciary  career  is  but  rarely  open  to  him ;  if  he 
prepares  himself  for  an  academic  profession  he  finds 
the  possibilities  few,  no  matter  what  his  excellence 
might  be.  Everywhere  he  rushes  up  against  a  dead 
wall,  on  the  stones  of  wliich  he  finds  written:  "A  Jew 
is  only  a  German  conditionally;  not  a  full  German.'^ 
And  yet  these  young  Jewish  Germans  crave  the  full 
measure  of  national  life.  They  are  l)urnin,2:  with  the 
fever  of  patriotism  which  demands  satisfaction  and  is 
refused  opportunity.  As  Germany  seems  to  deny  them 
the  full  and  free  scope  it  is  but  natural  though  it  is  sad 
that  they  turn  to  the  East,  and  under  the  spell  of  a 
vision  grand  and  noble,  believe  that  there  lies  the  na- 
tional destiny  of  the  Jew,  and  there  the  field  for  pa- 
triotic culture.  But  here  in  America  we  have  even  not 
this  dim  shadow  of  an  excuse.  There  is  no  call  for 
Zionism  in  America,  except  that  Zionism  which  is 
under  the  consecration  of  philanthropy,  and  would  help 
the  millions  of  Jews  in  Eussia  to  a  better  future,  to  a 

16 


nobler  opportunity  to  lead  a  decent  life.  Political 
Zionism  is  absolutely  insufferable  in  America.  Have  we 
not  a  nation?  We  have  one.  Let  those  that  deny  this 
weigh  their  words.  They  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  their 
argument,  that  even  in  America  the  Jew  is  only  a 
second  class  citizen.  "What  of  it  if  we  have  social  arro- 
gance to  meet?  What  of  it  if  our  sons  are  not  eligible 
for  the  secret  college  fraternities?  AYliat  of  it  if  some 
snobs  pretending  to  greater  culture  would  look  down 
upon  us  as  not  worthy  of  associating  with  them?  I 
am  conceited  enough  to  believe  that  he  who  holds  me 
unworthy  of  association  with  him  is  not  worthy  of  asso- 
ciation with  me.  Where  I  am  excluded,  the  distinction 
of  the  exclusion  is  mine.  It  is  the  coward  that  whines ; 
it  is  the  fool  that  complains.  What  of  it?  Think  of 
it!  If  Jesus,  their  Savior,  as  tliey  call  him,  were 
to  visit  them,  he  would  have  to  be  excluded  from  their 
hotels  and  clubs,  for  he  was  a  Jew.  If  St.  Paul  was  to 
reappear  on  earth,  St.  Paul,  whose  words  their  pulpits 
reiterate  as  the  foundation  of  their  creed,  he  could  not 
register  in  a  hotel  that  does  not  cater  to  Hebrew  pat- 
ronage. The  best  men  would  be  excluded,  and  the  purest 
women,  better  men  and  purer  women  than  are  among 
the  would-be  nobility  of  anti-Semitic  conceits. 

The  fact  is  the  Jew  in  America  has  a  nation.  And 
in  saying  this  I  do  not  refer  to  the  fact  that  once  in  a 
while  a  professional  Hebrew  is  put  on  a  polyglot  po- 
litical ticket,  that  one  of  my  race,  "a  Hebrew  states- 
man," or  one  of  my  religion  is  nominated  for  some 
office  or  other.  In  saying  that  we  Jews  in  America 
have  no  excuse  for  Zionism,  I  do  not  even  refer  to 
the  fact  that  in  our  Senate  Jews  have  sat;  as  even 
now  one  whose  father  was  a  member  of  my  first  con- 
gregation in  Baltimore  has   been  elected   Senator   of 

17 


the  great  State  of  Maryland,  a  man  who  while  reli- 
giously no  longer  in   association   with  the   Jews,  has 
never  tried  to  evade  the  circumstance  that  he  is  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  a  Jew,  one  who  has  never  alloAved 
any  one  to  throw  slurs  upon  the  character  of  the  Jew 
without  challenging  him  to  substantiate  the  charge  by 
evidence   that   could   not   be    disputed.      Even   if    we 
had  not  a  single  Senator  of  Hebrew  birth,  if  we  had 
not  a  single  representative  in  Congress  of  Jewish  origin, 
even  if  we  had  not  a  single  constable,  or  something 
of  that  sort  in  this  city  or  elsewhere  to  our  credit,  if 
at   election   time   none    would   approach   us   and   say, 
"Kun  for  office,"  and  if  you  run  you  get  the  Jewish 
vote  and  my  support/'  if  none  of  the  party  managers 
would  believe,  and  they  should  not  believe  it,  the  story 
of   the   artful   deceiver   who   tells   them    to   nominate 
this  or  that  ''Hebrew"  because  the  nomination  will  fetch 
the  "Jewish  vote ;"  if  none  of  the  party  managers  ever 
advertised  in  our  Jewish  papers  so-called,  my  own  in- 
cluded, still  I  should  say  the  Jew  in  America  has  no 
right  to  pretend  that  he  has  no  nationality.     We  have 
a  nationality,  it  is  the  American.    Let  us  be  careful  not 
to  blur  this  truth.    We  are  often  careless  in  speech.    We 
sometimes  speak  of  Americans  as  though  we  were  not 
Americans.     How  often  have  I  been  told  "Doctor,  we 
were  proud  of  you  to-day.     You  had  many  Americans 
in  the  audience!"    As  a  rule,  I  have  only  Americans  in 
my  audience.    You  are  Americans.    I  am  an'  American. 
Let  us  wean  ourselves  of  this  loose,  slipshod  expression 
which  admits  what  is  untrue,  and  what  the  Jew  should 
not  admit  in  this  country.     Mordecai  in  the  novel  is  a 
patriotic  Jew.     He  saves  the  king's  life;  he  renders 
the  state  a  great  service.     Confronted  by  the  prejudice 
invoked  by  racial  nationalism,  it  is  the  Jew's  highest 

18 


duty  to  emphasize  that  as  a  Jew  he  has  no  distinct  Jew- 
ish nationality. 

Let  ns  then  carry  home  the  consciousness  and  into 
our  very  ambition  the  conviction  that  in  the  presence 
of  Aryan  racialism,  which  is  brutalism  gone  to  seed, 
the  Jews  must  have  a  care  not  to  fall  a  prey  to  Sem- 
itic arrogance.     In  the  face  of  brutalizing  non-Jewish 
nationalism  the  Jew  of  America,  at  least,  need  not  fear. 
Kis  nation  is  none  other  than  that  over  which  waves — 
may  God  grant  that  it  wave  forever— the  Star  Span- 
gled  Banner  of   Liberty,   Justice  and  Law.     Modern 
Hamans  have  made  the  story  of  Esther  vital  again. 
Esther  may  never  have  lived.    I  have  no  doubt,  and  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  say  so,  that  the  Book  belongs  to  fic- 
tion.   It  is  a  novel,  but  like  many  a  novel  it  puts  truth 
much  more  strongly  than  ever  reality  could  express  it. 
A  real  Haman,  who  lived  once  and  died  then,  what  he 
to  us  ?  A  real  Esther,  that  was  once  Queen  and  then  died, 
what  she  to  us?  A  real  Mordecai,  that  once  sat  at  the 
Queen's  gate,  that  once  refused  to  bow  to  Haman,  and 
once  brought  upon  all  the  Jews  the  recoil  of  his  stubborn 
refusal  to  show  common  courtesy;  a  real  Mordecai  who 
once  became  the  successor  of  the  dethroned  favorite  of 
the  King,  what  he  to  us?     The  Book  of  Esther  is  so 
deeply  pathetic  and  so  eternally  interesting  because  it 
speaks  of  tendencies  and  illustrates  motives  which  never 
localized  here  and  there,  alas,  have  been  universal,  and 
are  modern  to-day.     But  the  hour  has  grown  late.     I 
must  leave  for   another  occasion  the   analysis   of  the 
two  other  counts  in  the  bill  of  indictment  drawn  by 
our  enemies.     That  our  morality  is  inferior  and  our 
religion  the  parent  of  our  inferior  morality,  is  among 
their  claims.     This  accusation  is  as  baseless  as  are  the 
other  charges. 

19 


I  had  hoped  wlicn  a  younpj  man  that  the  day  would 
come  when  in  a  Reform  Congregation  the  Purim  feast 
might  be  ignored.  But  that  day  has  alas,  not  yet 
dawned.  Yet  is  the  world  full  of  the  venom  of  Haman ; 
yet  is  the  world  full  of  weak  men  of  the  stamp  and 
character  of  Ahasuerus;  yet  is  the  world  in  need  of 
the  services,  of  Esther,  and  of  Mordccai.  And  because 
that  need  is  pressing,  the  story  and  the  feast  have  place 
even  in  the  scheme  of  this  radical  Jewish  Reform  Con- 
gregation. Might  Purim  bring  to  you  Joy,  buf  also 
the  deeper  appeal  to  meditate  and  ponder,  to  reflect 
and  to  resolve.  Prejudice  cannot  b©  fought  with  preju- 
dice, but  it  can  be  met  by  courage;  it  can  be  defeated 
by  love.  When  they  hate,  let  us  love;  when  they  mis- 
judge, let  us  be  careful  to  judge  truthfully.  Wlien 
they  invoke  brutal  convictions,  let  our  souls  be  under 
the  consecration  of  a  liigher  and  nobler  faith.    Amen. 


20 


No.  18. 


TKe    Concordance    of   Judaism 
and  Americanism 


AN  ahhv^kss 

By 
EMII^    G.    HIRSCH 


The  Reform  Advocate 

Bloch  &  Newwan,  Publishers 

204  Dearborn  Street,  ....  Chicago,  III. 


THE  CONCORDANCE  OF  JUDAISM   AND 
AMERICANISM. 


A.X  ADDRESS  PREACHED  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  CELEBRATION 
IX  SIXAI  TEMPLE,  SUNDAY,  NOV.  26,  1905. 


BY  EMIL  G.  HIRSCH. 


^^^lere  the  Canadian  Pacific,  that  mighty  miracle  of 
modern  man^s  daring  and  doing,  winds  its  ever  narrow- 
ing embrace  of  steel  arms  around  the  giant  frame  and 
then  the  snow-hooded  brow  of  the  mountain  sentries 
mounting  the  guard  over  the  Rockies'  midcontinental 
bastion,  the  wondering  traveler  wheeled  along  this  impe- 
rial highway's  upward  coil  in  dramatic  suddenness  is 
brought  face  to  face  with  one  of  the  most  striking  exhibi- 
tions of  N'ature's  curious  capriciousness.  Hbwever  much 
he  may  have  been  impressed  with  the  defiant  boldness 
that  reckoned  not  the  menace  of  the  roaring  canyons 
over  which  bridge  and  span  are  thrown  in  proud  uncon- 
cern, or  with  the  stupendous  assumption  of  se- 
curity that  holds  in  contempt  the  perils  of  preci- 
pices along  which  the  roadbed  skirts  with  ten- 
acious grit;  when  at  the  great  divide  he  notices 
how  the  chance  interval  of  a  hair's  breadth  be- 
tween the  peak's  wrinkles  determines  the  direction  of 
the  water-rills  and  the  leaping  cascades,  he  is  stirred 
to  reflection  as  bv  no  other  observation.    Twin  children 


of  the  clouds,  cradled  in  one  nursery,  the  raindrops  are 
here  bidden  separate.     One  rushes  on  to  his  destiny, 
meeting  in  his  descent  the  morning's  sun,  the  other  has- 
tens to  his  goal  in  the  van  of  the  evening's  approach. 
Spun  on  the  same  loom,  one  silvery  ribbon  unwinds 
its  broadening  folds  until  they  are  tangled  in  the  At- 
lantic's mightier  nettings;,  the  other     unbobbins     its 
stretching  lengths  to  festoon  the  slopes  inclining  toward 
the  Pacific.     Though  he  know  the  law  which  compels 
one  of  heaven's  tears  to  seek  its  grave  in  the  birth- 
chamber  of  the  daystar  and  the  other  to  hasten  to  its 
funeral  in  advance  of  the  sinking  sun,  at  the  impres- 
sive recognition  of  the  phenomenon  in  the  concrete,  the 
observant   witness    is    involuntarily   oppressed   by   the 
consciousness  that  similar  "accidents"  determine  the  di- 
rection of  men's  gropings  and  enforce  divergency  of 
paths  leading  to  different  and  widely-separated  destinies. 
But  this  .depressing  obsession  soon  yields  to  the  inspir- 
ing certainty  that  only  in  the  seeming  whim  and  chance 
preside  over  the  alotling  of  our  fortune.     Closer  atten- 
tion to  the  intention  which  underlies  Nature's  dividing 
decree  soon  will  reveal  that  underneath  the  superficial 
divergence  is  operative  concordance  of     duty.       Both 
wateixlrops  that  at  the  line  must  part  from  each  other 
are  commissioned  to  one  ancl  the  same  task.    It  is  theirs 
to  coax  forth  flowers.-  to  fertilize  field  and  forest.    Both 
are  messengers  and  ministers  of  life-.     And  again  when 
they  shall  have  reached  their  respective  goals,  be  it  the 
sea  which  laps  the  Eastern  shores  or  that  which  sings 
the  lullaby  to  the  Western  states,  the  miracle  of  the 
resurrection  which  awaits  them  will  wing  both  alike 
to  new  upward  flight  and  on  the  heights  their  divided 
destinies  Avill  finally  converge.     Seemingly  doomed  to 
eternal  separation,  snowflakes  and  dewdrops  that  part 

4 


company  at  the  divide  are  foreordained  to  identity  of 
obligation. 

Thus  when  closer  analysis  unfolds  this  ethical  purpose 
which,  cloaked  or  clear,  is  always  fundamental  in  the 
Universe  and  which  is  never  dissipated  even  when  the 
factoring  process  seems  to  reduce  the  all  to  incoherent 
fragments,  caprice  of  division  is  at  once  lifted  to  the 
potency  of  planned  appointment.  Accident  under  this 
view  takes  on  the  consecration  of  vocation.  Differences 
are  blotted  out  in  the  recognition  that  they  are  means 
to  an  end,  and  in  the  prevision  of  this  end  divergence 
of  i)aths  sinks  out  of  sight  while  identity  of  responsi- 
bility which  neutralizes  all  variance  of  direction  looms 
up  large.  Xame  the  watersheds  which  force  division 
and  divergence  upon  men  what  you  will,  race,  religion, 
nationalit}^,  at  the  great  divide  the  space  which  separates 
is  infinitesimal.  These  channels  through  which  human- 
ity runs  on  to  its  goal  are  means  to  a  common  end.  On 
all  them  that  along  these  divergent  paths  apparently 
tend  apart  in  contrary  directions,  one  common  burden 
is  imposed.  Theirs  is  the  equality  of  function  under  the 
variety  and  difference  of  equipment.  Like  the  river 
systems  draining  into  different  oceans,  the  various  and 
differently  endowed  components  of  humanity  are  ap- 
pointed to  fill  eartli  with  life,  ever  enriching  and  deep- 
ening and  broadening.  This  conception  reconciles  di- 
versity with  unity.  It  sees  in  the  polychrome  spectrum 
only  unfolding  white  light. 

Little  dower  of  imagination,  I  hold,  is  competent  to 
apply  the  pathos  and  poetry  of  the  watershed's  influence 
upon  the  direction  of  the  raindrop's  ambition,  to  tlift 
symphonic  theme  of  this  memorial  day's  chorus.  At 
first  hearing,  its  jubilant  notes  seem  to  carry  the  invi- 
tation to  remember  differences.     It  is  the  landing  of 


Jews  that  it  commemorates.     It  seems    to    emphasize 
those  distinctions  that  set  off  the  Jew  from  liis  neigh- 
bor.    Or  again  if  stress  be  Laid  on  the  country's  name 
whose  hospitality  these  earliest  immigrants  of  Jewish 
origin  chunicd,  the  intention  of  our  synagogal  eelebva- 
tion  may  be  misunderstood  as  planned  to  throw  on  the 
screen  the  peculiarities  of  American  Israel,  enlarged  out 
of  all   proportion  and   thus   invigorate   the   American 
Jew's  insistence  upon  beini;  accorcled  a  distinct  position 
of  his  own  in  the  common  household  of  Israel. 
^    But  give  this  day's  jubilee-overture  a  second  hearing ! 
If  it  be  true — and  it  is — that  man  is  microcosmic  repro- 
duction of  the  Universe's  macrocosmos,  then  it  is  equally 
beyond  all  doubt  that  in  the  plan  of  God  nations  and 
peoples  are  called  to  be  microcosmic  illustrations  of  the 
plan  of  the  macrocosmic  humanity.     To  the  American 
nation  ^vas  assigned  task  and  opportunity  to  exemplify 
essential   unity   notwithstanding   the   influence   of  the 
various  watersheds  at  wiiich  the  lines  of  descent  diverge. 
Almost  all  the  races  of  the  planet  have  made  this  land 
their  trysting  ground.  Hither  they  have  brought  the  best 
and  strongest  which  it  was  theirs  to  develop.  Eeligion 
in  this  country  re-enacts  the  Pentacostal  outpouring; 
the  flaming  tongues  that  token  of  the  spirit  speak  their 
message  in  varied  tones  and  widely  differing  dialects. 
Social  customs,  the  ripples  from  many  distant  sources, 
give  color  and  mobility  to  home  and  exclusive  circles. 
Even  in  the  press  anel  on  the  platform,  in  our  streets 
and  villages  the  confusion  O'f  languages  is  docmuented. 
This  exceeding  abundance  of  variety  constitutes  one  of 
the  secrets  of  this  nation's  nervous  vitality.     Apparent 
discordance  results  under  the  consecration   of  patriot- 
ism in  effective  harmony.     True,  this  morning's  festal 
reveille  stirs  to  glad  reflection  only  a  little  more  than 

6 


one  of  the  eighty  millions  of  God's  children  that  call 
America  mother  or  spouse.  Yet,  it  is  not  in  conflict 
with,  nay,  it  is  in  confirmation  of  America's  distinc- 
tive genius  that  the  commemorative  occasion  addresses 
its  call  to  one  alone  of  its  many  components  and  con- 
tributors. E  plurihus  unum  formulates  a  truth,  radi- 
antly visible  in  the  vision  of  this  day.  By  rejoicing  as 
Jews  we  are  accentuating  our  Americanism. 

And  in  similar  manner  the  pride  of  our  Americanism 
which  possesses  our  heart  and  is  yearning  for  expression 
today,  is  not  a  protest  against,  it  is  a  proclamation  of 
our  fidelity  to  our  Judaism.  Like  America,  Judaism 
has  been  appointed  to  pattern  the  richer  diversities  of 
polychrome  human  life.  Its  aspects  are  many ;  its  vocal- 
izations numerous.  Catholic  Israel  wears  neither  the 
uniform  of  military  barracks  nor  the  livery  of  the 
penitentiary.  Its  is  Joseph's  coat  of  many  colors.  This 
continent  has  augmented  the  prophecies  and  proclama- 
tions of  Judaism  by  another  variation.  This  new  artic- 
ulation again  is  not  rigid.  It  is  vital  and  therefore 
flexible.  In  this  its  elasticity  and  vitality  American 
Judaism  only  conforms  to  the  historic  plasticity  of  Pan- 
Judaism  and  carries  it  out  to  fuller  productivity.  It 
looks  like  an  accident  that  we  were  directed  at  the 
watershed  Americanward  while  millions  of  Ijrothers  were 
sent  into  Russia.  To  our  lot  fell  American  citizenship, 
to  theirs  slave  service  in  the  house  of  bondage  more  op- 
pressive than  ever  was  Mizraim.  But  that  "accident" 
signifies  duty.  In  emphasizing  now  our  Americanism 
we  vow  to  be  true  all  the  more  devotedly  to  the  obliga- 
tion that  our  Judaism  impo-=es. 

In  fact,  he  is  ignorant  of  the  implications  of  Amer- 
icanism and  Judaism  both  who  would  hold  that  between 
them  towers  a  mountain  range  decreeing  and  enforcing 

7 


their  divergent  separation.  The  contrast  not  to  say 
conflict  between  tlicni,  i  l^now,  is  commonly  summarized 
in  the  statement  that  America  names  the  civilization  of 
liopeful  prospect,  Judlaism  that  of  regretful  retrospect. 
The  latter  is  a  tearful  memory,  the  former  a  joyful  an- 
ticipation. Tradition  is  Judaism's  store;  outlook  Amer- 
ica's strength.  Xo  more  arrogant  misconception  was  ever 
coined  than  this  artfully  pointed  antithesis.  Judaism  is, 
if  anything,  the  one  religion  of  impatient  prospect  and 
ecstatic  prevision  of  the  unborn  to-morrow.  America 
has  its  traditions  as  clearly  determinative  as  are  the 
influences  of  the  past  that  anchor  Judaism  to  its  his- 
toric moorijigs.  The  traditions  of  Amei'ica  reach  baciv 
further  than  the  discover}^  of  the  continent.  Our 
jurisprudence  is  grounded  on  the  old  common  law  of 
England.  And  in  these  precolonial  traditions  which 
have  been  among  the  most  prolific  stimuli  of  American 
thought,  conduct  and  character,  Judaism  has  had  a 
dominant  part.  In  the  "May-flower"  our  Bible  crossed 
the  Atlantic.  At  Plymouth  Eock  in  sober  reality  the 
Pentateuch  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  inspirations 
of  the  young  commonwealth.  The  Puritans  were,  in- 
deed, more  Hebraic  than  were  the  Jews  who  landed 
thirty-six  years  later.  Narrow  were  they,  but  their 
narrowness  was  ransomed  by  their  strength.  Serious 
were  they,  but  their  seriousness  elowered  them  with  the 
fortitude  without  which  none  may  hope  to  yoke  un- 
tamed naturo  to  his  purpo^ses.  Puritan  Hebrewism 
alone  enabled  the  pilgrims  to  exercise  dominion  over 
the  wilds  of  their  new  homo.  This  puritan  spirit 
was  nursed  at  the  breast  of  Jewish  literature.  It  was 
the  gift  laid  by  old  Judaism  into  the  cradle  of  this 
new  civilization.  It  had  share  in  preparing  the  advent 
of  the  era  of  independence,  as  in  the  thinking  of  the 

8 


men  that  later  phrased  our  political  documents  un- 
doubtedly Old  Testament  principles  had  had  determi- 
nating influence. 

One  who  can  pierce  through  verbal  husk  to  inner 
kernel  can  harbor  no  doubt  on  the  essential  concord- 
ance of  Americanism  and  Judaism.  The  stronger  the 
Jew  in  us,  the  more  loyal  the  American  in  us  will 
grow  to  be.  AVhat  is  the  fundamental  announcement 
of  Judaism?  You  say  the  "unity  of  Ood."  This 
may  and  may  not  name  the  characteristic  element. 
What  if  the  One  God  were  conceived  of  as  a  dark  frown- 
ing despot?  There  have  been  those  among  our  enemies 
to  misconstrue  in  this  wise  the  meanins^  of  our  mono- 
theism.  They  have  said  that  the  Jew  in  declaring 
his  God  to  be  One  proclaims  the  rulership  of  an  auto- 
crat whose  caprice  alone  tempered  by  bribes  is  the 
final  arbiter  of  the  world's  and  the  human  race's  fate. 
This  monotheism,  they  proceed  to  exj)lain,  is  there- 
fore differentiated  from  polytheism  only  in  its  numerial 
notation.  I  adduce  this  misrepresentation  for  the  pur- 
pose of  demonstrating  the  advisability  of  cpialifying 
our  definition.  Ethical  is  the  attribute  usually  in- 
troduced to  distinguish  the  monotheism  of  Judaism. 
But  what  does  the  phrase  signify?  A  German  thinker 
of  fame  tells  us  that  all  religion  is  anthropology.  In 
the  doctrine  concerning  man  flowers  into  view  the 
true  content  of  our  consciousness  O'f  God's  all  per- 
vading, all  sustaining  presence.  One  Go'd  is  the  highest 
expression  of  our  conviction  that  as  every  man  is 
created  in  the  image  of  God  every  man  by  his  l)irth- 
right  is  the  equal  of  every  other  man.  Everv  man  as 
pai'taking  of  divinity  has  a  value  which  'is  indepen- 
dent of  all  the  accidents  due  to  the  action  of  the 
(Watersheds.  '    Man   having   la    value   inherent    in   his 

9 


luniianity  has  personality  and  therefore  has  no  price. 
'J'hings  nmy  be  purchased,  persons  cannot.  The  value 
of  man  is  inexpressible  in  ieTnis  of  the  market.  Men 
are  not  like  the  products  of  mine  or  mill  oquivalented 
in  coin.  Low  or  lefty  every  man  incarnates  some- 
tliing  inalienable  which  is  not  affected  by  circumstance. 
In  this  something  roots  his  free  sovereignty. 

Is  not  America's  political  creed  the  practical  execu- 
tion and  activization  of  these  fundamental  conceptions 
of  Judaism?  Judaism\s  philosophy  spreads  the  basis 
whereon  rests  the  political  practice  of  America.  N^o 
other  justification  is  there  for  the  assumption  that 
men  are  born  free  and  equal  than  the  conception  of 
man  as  the '  incarnation  of  the  divine,  his  personality 
constituting  his  unpurchasable  worth  and  l)cing  the 
exponent  of  the  One  in  wdiose  image  all  alike  are 
created. 

This  inalienable  freedom  of  man  is  the  freedom  to 
live  out  the  law  of  his  being.  Law  and  freedom  are 
not  contraries;  they  are  complementaries.  Judaism 
the  religion  of  freedom  was  of  necessity  also  that  of 
the  Law.  To  whatever  degree  the  Talmudic  system 
through  micrology  may  have  mechanicalized  the  Law, 
none  who  understands  the  character  of  Judaism  but 
must  insist  that  liberty  to  activize  the  freedom  which 
it  posits  as  inherent  in  man's  participation  in  divinity, 
postulates  submission  to  the  supreme  law  of  moral  maj- 
esty and  final  siipi-cmacy.  The  law  of  the  moral  order  is 
im])erfectly  ex])ressed  in  the  self-given  law  of  state 
and  society.  Law  is  liberty  potential ized,  li])erty  is 
law  actualized.  The  American's  passion  for  liberty 
vouchsafed  by  law  and  for  law  grounded  in  liberty 
is  foreshadowed  and  sanctified  in  the  teachings  of 
Judaism. 

10 


But  the  congruence  of  Judaism  and  Americanism 
extends  further.  Judaism  postulates  co-operation  and 
co-ordination,  as  the  principle  of  organized  society. 
In  the  chapter  all  the  richer  in  truth  because  it  echoes 
old  mythology,  which  records  the  creation  of  man, 
the  duty  and  destiny  of  this  last  of  God's  creative  acts 
is  defined  as  rulership  over  all  the  preceding  works 
of  God.  "They/'  in  the  plural  shall  have  dominion, 
is  the  phraseology  of  the  account.  In  other  words  one 
man  is  incompetent  to  fulfill  this  appointment.  No 
man  may  be  spared  in  the  realization  of  this  aim. 
through  co-operation  and  co-ordinafion  of  effort  and 
purport::)  in  ever  larger  .scope  the  divinely  decreed 
destiny  will  be  attained.  Our  political  method  is 
co-opeiative  and  establishes  the  co-ordination  of  the 
various  organs.  Our  national  constitution  is  often 
described  as  a  noble  compromise.  It  had  to  be  this 
as  -exponential  of  the  principles  under  which  alone 
freedom  and  law  can  be  made  effective,  viz.,  co- 
operation and  co-ordination,  But  not  only  that 
written  charter,  the  very  life  of  the  nation's  plan  of 
self-government  is  imbued  with  these  principles  and 
informed  bv  them.  Home  autonomv  and  national 
authority  are  the  two  poles.  America  begins  with  the 
fiee  individual,  leads  him  for  co-operation  with  other 
free  individuals,  his  equals,  along  ascending  steps  to 
come  to  the  town-meeting  which  then  expands  into 
the  municipality  and  county,  these  autonomous  cor- 
porations growing  into  the  state  and  the  states  finally 
constitutino-  the  Union.  Above  the  Union  the  un- 
written  yet  wonderfully  effective  Highest  Law,  the 
law  not  only  of  this  nation  but  of  all  nations,  the 
Law  which  is  the  outflow  of  the  Moral  Order  of  the 
Universe,  the  moral  meaning  of  all  humanity's  strivings 

11 


and  stnig;e,les.  If  the  Jewish  Commonwealth  was  a 
Theocracy,  onr  government  is  also  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  term  iheocratic.  The  implications  of  the  belief  in 
the  One  God  are  basic  to  our  democracy. 

Often  antagonism  is  predicated  of  Judaism  as  of 
religion  in  general  to  the  buoyant  energetic  spirit  of 
America,  its  assertive  self-conscious  self-reliant  realism. 
How  far  this  suspicion  ds  justified  in  the  case  of  other 
religions,  it  is  not  for  me  to  verify.  Against  Judaism 
the  imputation  cannot  be  maintainecl.  I  know  that 
in  some  synagogues  the  conceit  has  been  encouraged 
which  would  make  of  Judaism  another  scheme  of  salva- 
tion, a  preparation  for  and  an  assurance  of  immor- 
tlality.  Under  this  misapprehension,  indeed,  Judaism 
would  have  little  sympathy  with  the  realities  of  this 
world ;  nor  would  it  have  any  but  an  indistinct  message 
for  this  life.  But  is  other-worldlincss  the  dominant 
in  Judaism's  proclamation  or  the  inspiration  of  its 
])rophecy?  Clearly  not.  Judaism  would  inform  this 
life,  this  world.  It  would  through  its  spirit  transmute 
conditions  and  chariaeters  here  and  now.  It  was  the 
first  to  iDray  "Thy  Kingdom  come.''  But  this  kingdom, 
this  'Olam.  ha-ha  was  not  beyond  the  cloud.  Its  portals 
were  not  those  of  the  grave.  That  world  to  be  which 
is  the  vision  of  Israel's  hope  and  faith  is  this  world  of 
ours  rectonstituted  mider  the  sanctifying  reforming 
sway  of  justice,  righteousness  and  love.  With  justice 
triumphant,  TJghteousness  isocialiaed,  Judaism  hails 
the  advent  of  the  Messianic  age  when  conditions  on 
earth  wilt  be  such  that  to  no  man  is  denied  opportunity, 
to  realize  his  own  divinity.  Therefore  the  dominion 
of  religion  according  to  our  doctrine  is  co-extensive 
with  the  range  of  life.  Rail  out  of  the  plentitude  of 
your  prejudices  at  T'almudic  ritualism !    That  ritualism 

12 


is  perhaps  the  caricature  but  still  the  expression  of 
the.  vital  truth  that  nothing  in  life  is  indifferent  to 
religion.  The  most  trivial  acts  are  tremiendous  acts. 
There  is  no  divide  at  which  the  secular  parts  company 
from  the  sacred.  Eeligion  must  be  in  <ail  things  or 
it  is  in  nothing.  That  misintrepreted  phrase  "My  King- 
dom is  not  of  this  world"  as  understood  by  Catholic 
Christianity  and  Calvinistic  theology,  has  no  place  in 
the  dictionary  of  Judaism. 

Judaism  as  a  religion  has  concern  with  commerce 
■and  industry.  It  is  characteristic  of  Judaism's  realism 
that  on  the  "tables  'of  the  law"  doctrine  preludes 
dutv.  "Thou  shalt  not  steal"  was  as  solemnly  thund- 
ered forth  as  "I  am  the  Elternal."  '  This  construction 
of  Judaism  as  ideal  realism,  as  passion  for  righting  the 
tilings  of  this  world,  as  preparation  not  for  death 
]mt  ioY  the  perfect,  "world  to  be"  the  perfect  state 
and  social  order  of  the  future,  is  not  new.  It  is  the 
liurdcn  of  the  prophets'  censure  and  caution;  it  is  the 
content  of  Pentateuchal  legislative  provision.  The 
E^abbis  express  this  conviction  when  they  observe  that 
the  Torah  was  not  given  (to  the  Angels  and  describe 
the  dramatic  reception  of  Moses  in  the  council-chamber 
of  God  when  come  to  claim  for  earth  the  Torah.  The 
angels  objected.  But  at  the  bidding  of  the  Holy  One, 
the  son  of  Amram  proves  that  angels  need  not  the 
liaw ;  that  its  commands  apply  to  men  and  earth  alone. 
How  far  have  they  strayed  from  genuine  Judaism 
who  would  have  the  Jewish  pulpit  be'  silent  on  the 
injustices  of  earth,  the  maladjustment  of  society  and 
under  the  plea  that  Temple  and  Synagogue  must  be 
sacred  to  religion  would  liave  religion  shrink  into  a 
•  contrivance  to  arouse  pleasurable  emotions  in  the  wor- 
shiper, ecstatic  sensuous  Ibregleams  of  heaven's  felici- 

13 


ties;  into  an  ajiothecary's  laboratory  where  patent  drugs 
arc  concocted  for  the  easing  of  heart-ache,  or  opiates 
arc  held  in  readiness  for  the  dulling  of  grief  and  pain 
at  the  death  of  dear  ones.  Religion  consoles  and  eases 
but  only  when  it  stimulates  to  action  when  it  quickens 
conscience  and  'directs  aright  conduct.  Ikmeniber 
great  Eabbis  exposed  the  iniquity  of  negro  slavery  from 
their  pulpits.  Eemember  that  our  greatest  Eeform 
preacher  David  Einhorn  used  to  say  ^^no  politics  in 
religion  but  by  all  means  religion  in  politics.'^  Negro 
slavery  has  l)een  wiped  out,  but  alas !  other  and  worse 
slavery  still  prevails  in  this  world  of  ours.  .Shall  they 
who  hear  the  clanking  of  the  chains  forego  speaking 
though  their  old  Jewish  ]3rayer-book  praises  God  thrice 
daily  for  having  led  His  people  from  bondage  to 
slavery?  Widows  and  orphans  are  robbed.  Does  only 
to  the  miserable  sneak  thief  that  picks  our  pocket  apply 
"Thou  shalt  not  steal !"  and  not  as  solemnly  to  the 
shrewd  manipulators  who  have  not  scrupled  to  juggle 
with  trust  funds,  the  accumulations  of  the  nation's  sav- 
ings, the  sacrifices  of  heads  of  families  solicitous  that 
their  wives  and  children  shall  not  be  left  to  the  cruel 
mercy  of  a  cold  selfish  world?  Ah,  they  know  not  their 
Judaism  who  would  have  it  be  a  conventional  badge 
of  spiritual — God  save  the  mark! — respectability.  No, 
Judaism  is  for  this  world !  Its  genius  of  hopeful 
realism  has  syllabled  the  spiritual  message  which  a 
people  like  that  of  the  United  States  is  in  need  of. 
Because  its  kingdom  is  not  beyond  the  clouds  but  a 
vision  of  justice  and  freedom  realized  in  the  tents  of 
man,  Judaism  strikes  the  note  that  sets  vibrating  the 
heart  of  America  similarly  attuned  to  energetic  realism, 
similarly  tender  to  the  sufferer  from  injustice,  similarly 

14 


hopeful   of   the   future   dawn   of  universal   peace   and 
liberty. 

Our  reform  Judaism  has  come  to  understand  in 
fullest  measure  this  concordance  of  its  own  genius 
with  that  of  the  institutions  and  the  soul  of  America. 
Vre  feel  that  jf  anywhere  on  God's  footstool  our  Mes- 
sionic  vision  will  he  made  real,  it  is  in  this  land  where 
a  new  humanity  seems  destined  to  arise.  Xot  to  Jeru- 
salem are  our  eyes  turned,  but  to  God!  ^Ve  cannot 
honestly  declare  that  we  are  here  in  exile.  We  cannot 
honestly  petition  that  we  be  led  back  to  Palestine  as  our 
country.  We  have  a  country  which  is  ours  by  the  right  of 
our  being  identified  with  its  destinies,  our  being  devoted 
to  its  welfare,  our  sharing  its  trials,  eur  rejoicing  in 
its  triumphs.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  has  the 
Jew  sojourned  in  this  country.  He  is  not  an  alien  here. 
His  views  of  liberty  and  law,  of  man's  inalienable  rights 
and  duties  hallowed  by  the  sublimities  of  his  religion, 
are  in  creative  concordance  with  the  distinctive  princi- 
ples pillaring  American  civilization. 

N'ot  an  alien,  the  Jewish  American  has  the  right  to 
ask  that  now  when  in  darkest  Europe  humanity  is  out- 
raged, this,  his  land,  remain  hospitable  to  all  that  would 
escape  from  the  hell  of  persecution  and  intolerance  and 
like  the  Pilgrim  fathers  of  Puritan  faith  and  the  first 
Jews,  the  vanguard  of  the  million  and  two  hundred 
thousand  American  Jews,  would  make  this  land  their 
home.  The  Jew  in  America,  as  we  have  been  told  this 
verv  morning,  has  been  faithful  to  his  pledges.  The  com- 
munity at  large  was  not  burdened  in  consequence  of  its 
generous  and  just  policy  of  the  open  door.  AATiatever 
may  come  now,  we  shall  assume  our  res^wnsibility  with- 
(Tiit  haggling. 

We  may  "claim  to  have  been  originators  and  discov- 

15 


crcrs  in  one  field,  that  of  the  phih-inthropics.     But  I 
fear  the  staff  of  the  leader  is  ahout  to  fall  from  our 
hands.     We  have  become  wedded  too  Ijlindly     to     in- 
stitutionalism.      It   is   the   line   of   least  resistance,   I 
know;  but  in  moral  life  the  line  of  least  resistance  is 
always   of   evil.      Individualization   is   costly   and   our 
local  institutions  plead  for  more  liberal  support.     The 
middle  class  does  its  duty.     Of  those  that  are  below 
the  middle  line,  in  justice  nothing  can  be  asked.    There 
are,  however,  men  in  this  city  who  through  the  oppor- 
tunities offered  them  in  iVmerica  have  come  into  pos- 
session of  more  than  what  they  or  theirs  can  ever  need, 
who  have  received  as  reward  for  their  labor,  I  grant, 
large  returns  from  society.     They  now  must  remember 
that  they  are  the  stewarcls  of  their  surplus,  not  its  ir- 
responsible owners.     It  is  for  them  to  place  our  chari- 
ties in  this  city  on  a  sound  basis.    Is  there  one  of  this 
class  who  may  urge  that  if  he  doubles  his  subscription 
of  $2,000  a  year  he  will  suffer  want,  or  his  capital  be 
impaired?    Xone  of  them  spends  his  income,  and  some 
of  them  cannot  spend  even  the  interest  on  their  yearly 
income.      To    them    is   addressed   the   appeal    of   this 
day.     I  have  but  scant  affection  for  the  very  rich  Jews 
of  N'ew  York,  and  they  have  no  patience  with  me,  I 
dare  say.     But  whatever  arrogance  they  may  display  ^ 
an  their  dealings  with  rabbi  or  minister,  they  have  rec- 
ognized what  they  owe  to  the  community.     The  New 
York   institutions  are  supported  in   the  main  by   the 
richest  men.     That  is   the  right  way.     The  men  of 
modest  means,   th-)se  that  make   an  honorable  living, 
may  and  should  contribute  whatever  they  can  spare, 
but  they  are  not  able  to  carry  the  load.     It  is  the  clear 
duty  of  ten  or  twelve  men  in  this  city  to  carry  the  main 
burden.      They   need    only    elouble    their    yearly    sub- 

16 


scriptions.  This  .will  ruin  none;  it  will  help  ns  all. 
That  should  be  tlieir  way  of  celebrating  this,  our  me- 
morial hour.  Think  of  what  you  were  when  you  came 
here.  How  much  did  you  have?  One  of  you  has  told 
me  that  his  wiiole  assets  consisted  of  a  basket  of  ap- 
ples, and  he  had  to  dispose  of  them  quickly,  for  one  of 
the  stock  had  begun  to  rot.  That  was  his  beginning. 
Vrhat  has  been  his  success  after  this  deal  in  apples? 
You  would  know  if  I  dared  mention  his  name.  Yet 
his  experience  is  typical.  Will  he  claim  that  if  he 
doubles  his  subscription  to  the  charities,  large  in  the 
luni])  as  now  it  is,  that  his  business  will  be  ruined, 
his  children  will  have  to  face  want,  his  grandchildren 
will  be  mercilessly  exposed  to  the  winter's  cruel  blasts? 
Is  he  not  able  to  repay  in  this  slight  way  the  bounty 
which  American  life  has  placed  under  his  control  as 
the  honestly  won  reward  for  his  honestly  performed 
work  ?  Would  it  have  been  possible  for  him  in  Europe 
to  rise  as  he  has  risen  here?  Is  it  not  his  duty  to  make 
the  rise  of  others  easier? 

We  must  prepare  for  the  other  contingencies  that  are 
impending.  I  personally  do  not  believe  that  De  Witte's 
promises  will  be  realized.  Of  course  these,  my  oft 
expressed  misgivings,  are  due  to  my  not  having  been 
invited  to  kow-tow  to  De  Witte;  if  I  had  been  taken 
along  I  should  trumpet  to-day  a  different  tune.  That 
IS  one  of  the  many  truthful  things  circulated  about 
me;  let  him  who  wishes,  if  it  affords  him  pleasure, 
construe  my  opinions  in  this  wise.  I  believe  I  coulcl 
have  seen  the  Eussian  envoy  by  merely  sending  him  a 
request  for  an  audience.  The  Eabbi  of  Sinai  Congrega- 
tion ceases  to  be  an  obscure  individual  at  times  and 
takes  on  representative  character  even  if  he  be  not  at 
the  head  of  a  secret  order  or  a  magnate  of  Wall  Street. 

17 


I  do  not  believe  that  the  poor  premier  even  if  lie  have 
the  will  has  the  power  to  redeem  his  pledge.  We  must 
face  the  sad  situation  as  it  is.  L  myself^  an  immigrant, 
and  you,  the  chiUlren  of  immigrants,  if  not  immigrants 
yourselves,  must  jDrepare  to  receive  new  thousands  of 
immigrants  from  Eussia,  which  is  a  hell,  from  Rou- 
mania,  which  is  an  inferno.  We  must  ransom  the 
pledge  given  by  those  who  settled  250  years  ago,  that 
"none  of  ours  shall  be  a  burden  on  the  community.''  In 
this  awful  calamity  all  American  Jewry  must  band  and 
stand  together.  It  is  a  duty  we  owe  to  Judaism  and 
to  America ;  one  of  the  many  obligations  in  which  our 
Judaism  emphasizes  wliat  our  Americanism  tokens; 
in  which  our  Americanism!  proves  that  it  is  harmoni- 
ously attuned  to  the  most  profound  and  most  solemn 
declarations  of  our  Judaism.  The  flag  shall  welcome 
the  new  pilgrims,  and  our  faith  shall  make  them  know 
that  their  tottering  steps  shall  be  supported  and  their 
trembling  hands  shall  be  upheld  after  the  terrible  af- 
flictions laid  on  them  in  the  land  of  their  birth,  the  land 
of  despotic  brutality,  of  dehumanized  barbarism. 

Great  is  the  joy  which  may  possess  our  heart.  Our 
escutcheon  as  Americans  is  without  stain.  We  have 
had  a  share  in  the  making  of  this  nation.  In  the  mine 
and  in  the  mill,  at  the  lathe  and  at' the  loom,  in  count- 
ing room  and  council  chamber  the  Jew  has  been  at 
work  for  two  centuries  and  a  half  for  his  America. 
He  has  sentried  his  nation's  camp;  he  has  been  in  the 
mast's  lookout  on  his  nation's  ships;  he  has  gone  out 
to  battle  and  he  was  among  them  that  fell  at  the  firing 
line.  Officer,  private,  whatever  his  rank,  when  the  na- 
tion asked  for  life  or  limb,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  offer 
the  sacrifice.  In  institutions  of  learning  the  Jew  has 
m,iade  his  mark.     In  the  walks  of  enterprise  his  individ- 

18 


uality  has  been  felt  as  a  telling  potency  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  greater  aims  of  American  energy. 
In  the  professions  he  stands  high ;  on  the  bench  he  has 
often  had  representation,  of  the  best  and  by  the  best; 
in  the  pulpits  of  the  land  the  Jew  has  not  been  in  the 
last  and  lowest  ranks.  In  Boston,  I  believe,  these  days 
they  will  commemorate  Garrison's  services.  This  offers 
an  opportunity  to  dwell  once  more  upon  facts  often 
overlooked,  and  therefore  all  the  more  worthy  of  being 
pointed  out,  that  in  that  struggle  against  slavery  none 
was  more  eager,  none  was  more  enthusiastic  than  the 
leader  of  American  Eeform  Judaism.  And  in  evidence 
how  intensely  wedded  to  liberty  is  Judaism,  his  voice 
found  strong  support  in  the  pulpit  of  the  most  ortho- 
dox Portuguese  synagogue  of  Philadelphia.  Keady  to 
die,  if  necessary,  among  those  that  spoke  against 
slavery,  at  risk  of  life  and  position,  were  David  Ein- 
horn  and  Sabbato  Morais. 

We  have  earned  the  right  to  call  this  our  country. 
The  future  will  ijlace  new  solemn  obligations  upon  us 
for  the  country's  sake  and  as  Judaism's  consecration; 
we  shall  not  shirk  our  duties.  Happy  we  American 
Jev/s  that  have  a  country.  America  is  ours.  We  can 
sing  with  all  others, 

"My  country  'tis  of  thee!  sweet  land  of  liberty, 
Of  thee  I  sing; 

Land  where  my  fathers  died,  land  of  our  Pilgrims' 
pride/' 

The  watershed  separates  raindrops  and  snowflakes 
to  divergent  destiny.  Pace,  religion,  birth  and  condi- 
tion also  seem  to  elivide.  But  on  the  heights  the  line 
of  separation  is  thin;  and  in  duty  again  all  difference 

19 


of  direction  is  consecrated  to*  unity  of  purpose.  In 
our  nation  no  divides  but  are  instrumentalities  of 
service.  CJinging  to  his  Judaism,  the  Jew  will  be  a 
more  strenuous,  a  more  loyal,  a  more  enthusiastic  Amer- 
ican. 

May  God  bless  our  country ;  keep  it  in  His  protection. 
May  His  light  shine  out  o'er  it.  and  His  peace  abide 
and  abound  in  it.  This  is  the  prayer  of  tlie  Jew  on 
this,  the  Jewish-American  anniversary  day  of  joy  and 
solemn  resolves.  Answer  it,  God  in  heaven,  in  Tliy 
mercv.     Amen,  Amen! 


20 


REFORM    JUDAISM    AND    UNITARIANISM. 

AX    ADDRESS    PREACHED     BEFORE     SIXAI     CONGREGATION 
SUNDAY^  DEC.  17,  1905. 


BY  EMIL   G.   HIRSCH. 


Biblical  selection:      Jeremiah,  xxii. 

A  distinction  without  a  difference,  many  contend,  is 
connoted  by  the  two  names,  Eeform  Jndaism  and  Uni- 
tarianism.  And  this  contention  appeals  to  them  with 
all  the  greater  force  since  the  cry  has  gone  np  that 
it  were  time  to  lay  stress  on  the  nnities  and  identities 
of  the  various  religious  convictions  to  the  exclusion  and 
obliteration  of  their  variances  -and  discordances.  Cer- 
tainly none  of  us  l)ut  would  hail  with  joy  the  splendor 
of  the  noontide  when  the  complete  absence  of  shadow 
will  indicate  that  the  rays  of  Truth  coincide  with 
the  absolute  perpendicular.  But  that  hour  is  still  far 
off.  Popular  as  is  the  monition  to  forget  differences, 
deeper  thought  cannot  overlook  the  circumstance  that 
not  all  distinctions  are  superficial.  Many  of  the  lines 
of  demarcation  between  the  possessions  of  close  neigh- 
bors can  be  ignored  only  by  one  ready  to  sacrifice  pre- 
cious home  associations  without  adequate  compensation. 
Many  of  the  insistences  of  Judaism  which  have  resulted 
in  keeping  the  boundary  posts  in  their  places  are  ex- 
pressive of  vital  incentives.  To  abandon  them  would  be 
tantamount  to  loss  of  rich  sources  of  power.    We  might 

1 


do  worse  than  unlearn  some  of  the  glib  stock  phrases 
of  colorless  cosmopolitanism.  Unity  of  purpose  is  not 
dependent  on  uniformity  of  method.  Diversity  of  lan- 
guage makes  for  wealth  of  ideas.  Humanity  speaking 
but  one  tongue  would  be  poorer  in  poetry  at  all  events, 
even  if  in  the  dusty  markets  of  the  world  haggling  for 
profit  might  be  facilitated,  llcligion,  too,  may  proph- 
ecy of  one  ultimate  truth  and  still  syllabic  its  message 
in  different  aljDhabets.  Eeligions  are  not  the  children 
of  accidental  caprice.  Where  their  ways  part  company, 
historical  as  often  as  dogmatic  influences  have  brought 
about  the  separation.  It  is  erroneous  to  hold  that  be- 
cause the  human  heart  with  its  burdens  land  its  joys 
is  the  cradle  of  all  religion,  all  religions  are  equiv- 
alent. In  their  development,  some  have  attained  higher 
altitudes  than  others.  They  have  not  followed  one  and 
the  same  ro'ad,  nor  tended  to  the  same  goal.  Some 
have  scaled  the  heights  by  paths  and  under  motives  pe- 
culiarly their  own.  To  point  out  these  differences  is 
not  a  sin  against  the  holy  spirit  of  liberalism.  To 
search  for  the  underlying  meaning  of  these  variations  is 
a  duty  which  intellectual  indolence  alone  will  shirk. 
And  if  it  appears  that  distinctions  denote  vital  princi- 
ples, to  insist  that  they  be  neither  blurred  nor  blotted 
out  is  a  simple  act  of  justice. 

If  it  were  true  that  no  material  difference  is  expressed 
by  the  names  Judaism  and  Unitarianism,  scant  justifi- 
cation would  there  be  for  their  dividing  retention,  in 
view  of  the  possibility  of  uniting  the  two  bodies  in  a 
wider  fellowship,  uneler  unifying  Shibboleth.  Liberal 
though  we  claim  to  be,  we  are  not  inclined  to  drop  our 
distinct  appellation.  Is  this  mere  stubborness  on  our 
part?  Advantages  of  a  worldly  n'ature  certainly  are 
not  dependent  upon  our  retainnig  the  designation.    The 

2 


contrar}'  is  most  painfull}^  true.  Is  it  idle  sentiment 
that  prompts  our  decision?  Granted  for  argument's 
sake  that  sentiment  determines  our  attitude,  is  it  not 
a  fact  that  sentiment  such  as  this,  is  known  to  have 
heen  among  the  most  potent  forces  operative  for  good  in 
che  upward  march  of  humanity's  destiny?  I  for  one 
am  ready  to  bear  whatever  odium  attaches  to  the  dis- 
inclination to  efface  this  name  of  ours.  For  I  know 
its  use  is  justified  by  its  distinct  value  as  a  token  for 
certain  vital  viewpoints,  neglected  or  rejected  in  the 
implications  of  other  names  carelessly  said  to  be  of  iden- 
tical force  with  it.  I  am  a  Jew  and  not  a  Unitarian 
for  very  weighty  reasons  which  I  cannot  ignore. 

■In  savingthis  I  shall  omit  from  the  discussion,  for 
the  present",  the  element  of  l)irth.  Its  bearing  on  the 
problem  in  issue  will  be  made  clear  later  on.  Were 
theology  the  decisive  factor,  the  identity  of  Judaism 
and  Unitarianism  might  be  postulated.  Both  teach  the 
Unity  of  God.  Both  are  anti-trinitarian.  But  theolog}^  is 
not  the  supreme  index  of  'the  character  of  any  religion 
whatsoever;  the  doctrines  concerning  man  are  always 
primary.  Monotheism  is  a  general  term  under  which  a 
vast  variety  of  creeds  are  subsumed.  Trinitarians  are 
as  emphatic  in  claiming  for  their  systems  the  mon- 
otheistic note  as  are  Unitarians.  On  the  other  hand 
scholars  need  not  be  told  that  in  the  presentation  of  the 
God-idea  in  the  philosophy  of  Philo  and  later  in  the  the- 
osophy  of  the  Jewish  mystics  material  modifications  of 
unitarian  doctrine  have  been  accorded  wide  latitude. 
Would  we  discover  the  fundamental  divergences,  we 
must  pay  heed  to  the  teachings  concerning  the  purpose 
and  worth  of  man's  life  on  'earth.  The  viewpoint  of 
Judaism  in  this  respect  is  distinct.  Its  anthropology 
sets  it  apart  from  all  other  religious  constructions  of 

3 


life's  meaning,  whatever  concordances  may  superficially, 
be  suggested  by  the  verbal  formulation  of  its  God-belief 
and  that  of  other  fraternities. 

By  certain  surface  indications,  the  Jew  and'  the  Uni- 
tarian seem  to  be  assigned  to  one  group.  Both  were 
excluded  from  the  church  congress  convened  in  the 
interest  of  Church  Unity  a  few  weeks  ago.  But  in  this 
connection  one  circumstance  is  significant.  The  Jew 
never  dreamt  of  the  possibility  of  his  being  invited  to 
participate  in  the  movement.  Unitarians  accepted  their 
exclusion  by  no  means  as  a  foregone  conclusion.  They 
wish  to  be  known  as  Christians.  This  insistence  on 
their  part  upon  this  name  reveals  their  acceptance  of 
a  philosophy  of  history  to  which  no  Jew  will  subscribe. 
Of  course,  for  the  Unitarian  the  word  Christian  carries 
a  connotation  altogether  other  than  what  it  has  in 
the  vocabulary  of  Evangelical  and  Catholic  theologians. 
For  the  I'atter,  Christian  denotes  one  who  accepts  the 
Christ-ship  of  Jesus;  for  the  former  it  implies  dis- 
cipleship  to  Jesus,  the  man  and  teacher.  The  differ- 
ence is  vital.  For  the  Paulinian  dogma,  the 
teachings  of  Jesus,  his  life  and  labors  while  in 
this  mrmdane  sphere  are  of  slight  importance. 
His  death  alone  is  decisive.  The  Christ  is  the 
sulistituted  sacrifice.  He  is  the  second  Adam  ap- 
pointed to  ransom  by  his  blood  the  children  of  the  first 
conceived  and  born  in  sin,  the  fatal  consequence  of  their 
progenitor's  (disobedience  to  God's  commandl  The 
sin  of  the  first  Adam  brought  death  into  the  world; 
the  death  and  resurrection  of  the  second  defeated  death. 
They  who  accept  through  faith  the  Christ,  participate 
in  the  'atonement.  They  are  saved  through  God's  grace 
which  provided  in  Christ  the  vicarious  lamb.  As 
redeemed  through  the  blood  of  Christ,  they  are  Chris- 

4 


tians.  Their  religion  is  the  Christ-religion^  not  be- 
cause it  was  founded  b}'  Christ  but  because  it  is  the  glad 
tidings  of  the  Redemption  through  Christ^s  death  and 
resurrection.  As  Edward  Everett  Hale  does  not  sub- 
scribe to  this  doctrine  the  Evangelical  Church  Confer; 
ence  had  o'ood  warrant  for  refusino-  him  admission. 

iBut  while  rejecting  the  Christ-theology,  Christian 
Unitarians  agree  with  their  antipodes  in  regarding 
Judaism  in  the  light  of  a  mere  and  imperfect  prelim- 
inary. For  them,  all  religious  and  moral  development 
has  culminated  in  Jesus.  Before  him,  none  there  was 
in  Judea  or  elsewhere  that  even  in  faint  degree  approx- 
imated him  in  grasp  of  spiritual  and  ethical  Truth,  as 
after  him  no  other  was  needed  except  to  explain  what  he 
had  taught,  Jesus  being  the  highest  peak  in  the  moun- 
tain range  of  religious  and.  moral  thought  and  enthusi- 
asm. The  Jews  to  whom  first  of  all  dwellers  on  earth 
he  addressed  his  words,  rejected  him  incapable  of  un* 
clcrstanding  his  normal  grandeur  and  of  entering  into 
rfie  spirit  of  his  all-inclusive  love  and  all-pardoning 
pity.  He  was  unique  not  merely  in  his  own  time  and 
nation.  He  is  unique,  unparalleled  as  the  teacher  in 
all  time  and  in  all  nations.  His  doctrines  are  absolute. 
They  are  not  conditioned  1)y  historical  circumstance. 
In  fact,  this  one  teacher  stands  in  no  organic  relation 
to  his  age  or  country.  Judaism  was  neither  his  mother 
nor  his  nurse.  His  words  mean  the  extinction  of  Ju- 
daism. By  his  advent,  Israel,  if  ever  it  had  justification 
for  its  being,  lost  the  right  to  existence.  Jewish  truth 
was  a  dim  taper  the  light  of  which  paled  to  uttei- 
quenching  the  moment  this  daystar  burst  forth  in  sub- 
lime and  supreme  splendor. 

It  is  evident  that  this  Unitarian  Christianity  de- 
clares Judaism  to  have  been  a  stupid,  perhaps  a  wicked 

5 


error,  if  not  before,  certainly  after,  llie  glorious  be- 
ginning of  the  .Christian  era.  All  the  tears  shed  by 
Jewish  eyes,  all  the  suffering  endured  in  these  nineteen 
centuries  by  Jacob's  sons  have  been  bootless,  fruitless 
tribute  to  tribal  stubborness  and  racial  arrogance.  Tliey 
were  really  in  retribution  of  the  Jcavs'  refusal  to  ac- 
cept the  better  and  brighter  truth.  The  labors  of  the 
Jewish  scholars  were  waste  of  effort.  What  little  gold 
the  Eabbis  lifted  to  the  surface  had  been  anticipated 
in  tlie  richer  treasures  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
could  therefore  easily  have  been  spared  by  the  family 
of  man.  For  nearly  two  millenia  Judaism  has  been 
sterile  obstinacy  and.  the  pathos  of  it  all  has  been  the 
hallucination  of  Judaism  that  she  was  bearing  and 
rearing  children  sound  in  body  and  sane  in  mind.  No 
one  who  is  a  J«w  and  understands  the  spirit  of  Judaism 
and  is  acquainted  with  Jewish  literature  can  subscribe 
to  this  verdict.  Yet  the  Jew  who  lowers  his  own 
historical  fl'ag  to  unfurl  that  of  Unitarian  Christianity 
acquiesces  in  this  construction  of  history.  In  enrolling 
himself  among  the  disciples  of  the  Jesus,  whom  the 
Christian  Unitarians  proclaim  as  the  one  incomparably 
great  and  divinely  original  teacher  with  whom  no  other 
Prophet  or  thinker  may  be  associated,  the  Jew  declares 
his  acceptance  of  the  theory  that  his  martyr-forefathers 
were  incompetent  to  see  the  truth  and  by  their  bigotry 
and  blindness  stood  in  the  way  of  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious progress  of  their  children  and  their  community. 
If  the  contentions  of  our  Unitarian  neighbors  were 
borne  out  by  fact,  whatever  heart  pang  might  attend  the 
resolution,  we  should  not  be  slow^  to  form  it  henceforth 
to  read  our  own  history  in  the  true  light  and  act  upon 
the  revelation  thus  vouchsafed.  But  unfortunately,  the 
Jesus  of  the  Unitarian  dogma  is  as  little  the  Jesus  of 

6 


history   as   is   tlie   Christ  of  Paulinian  theology.     In 
maintaining  this,  we  need  not  invoke  the  aid  of  the 
modern  philosophy  of  evolution  and  ask  its  pronounce- 
ments on  the  assumption  that  the  teachings  of  Jesus  are 
in  no  way  organically  linked  to  the  life  and  thought  of 
the  age  in  which  they  took  on  first  articulation.     Let 
the   concession  be  made   that  genius   always   is   inde- 
pendent of  time  and  locality.     The  question  remains, 
do  what  is  known  as  the  sayings  of  Jesus  bear  out  the 
claim  of  their  absolute  originality?    Here  again  let  the 
widest  concessions  be  made.     Let  us  forget  all  we  have 
learned  of  the  higher  criticism  which  would  warrant 
the  statement  that  very  little  of  ihe  'New  Testament 
story  is  authentic  and  no  certainty  may  be  cherished 
that  the  utterances  ascribed  to  the  "Master"  fell  from 
his  lips.  We  shall  accept  the  gospels  as  co-temporaneous 
biographies   and   the   parables    and   sayings   as   steno- 
graphic   reports.     In    no    wise  do  the  contents  of  the 
evangels  corroborate  the  position  that  Jesus  was  one  of 
the    creative    minds   who    are    born    free    children    of 
eternity  and  the  universe  and  therefore  untethered  to 
time  and   locality.     There  is  not  one  syllable  in  his 
teachings  that  will  vindicate' his  superior  originality  in 
contrast  to  and  conflict  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Syn- 
agogue of  his  day.     ^A^ien  Geiger  made  this  statement 
four  decades  ago,  many  among  the  liberal  Protestant 
theologians  with  considerable  passion  attempted  to  re- 
fute it.     They  have  not  succeeded  in  justifying  their 
own  contrary  insistences.     Though  to  the  present  day, 
Harnack  and   Bousset  and  men  of  minor  equipment 
continue  to  ignore  the  testimony  of  Jewish  literature, 
scholars  at  home  in  this  field  can  harbor  no  doubt  on 
the  correctne-s  of  Goiger's  judgment.     In  method  and 
thought,  Jesus  is  a  Jewish  haggadist.     No  new  truth 

7 


was  winged  by  liim.  His  theology  is  Jewish.  ITis  ethics 
is  as  little  absolute  as  that  of  any  other  teacher.  Many 
of  the  positions  advanced  are  unintelligible  save  to  one 
who  is  familiar  with  the  peculiar  vocabulary  and  ex- 
pectations of  the  Messianism  of  the  declining  decades 
of  the  second.  Temple.  His  style  has  often  been  lauded 
as  unique.  Jewish  students  have  not  been  slow  to  rec- 
ognize the  beauty  and  force  of  his  diction.  Yet  the 
English  poet  who  in  recent  weeks  has  discussed  the 
unique  poetic  quality  of  Jesus'  similes  and  descriptive 
powers  has  still  to  learn  that  almost  every  element  which 
he  adduces  is  indigenous  to  the  Jewish  Mid  rash  and  is 
of  usual  occurrence  in  the  picture  language  of  the 
Rabbinical  homilies.  The  Jew  thus  has  no  reason  for 
abandoning  his  own  literature  in  exchange  for  the 
New  Testament.  In  his  own  books  he  can  find  inspira- 
tio  as  rich  and  as  pure  as  in  the  gospels. 

Nor  is  it  true  "that  Judaism  played  no  vital  part  in 
the  moral  and  religious  destiny  of  the  world  after  the 
"fullillment  in  Jesus.''  If  the  ethics  of  the  gospels 
are  final,  as  the  Christian  Unitarians  insist  they  are, 
the  Jews  in  sober  truth  have  good  cause  to  argue  that 
but  for  them  these  ethics  would  never  have  been  actu- 
alized. It  was  the  Jew  who  literally  offered  the  left 
cheek  to  be  smitten  while  the  right  still  tingled  with 
the  unjust  blow.  In  dealing  with  him,  the  "Christian" 
world  demanded  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  life  for  life. 
Imputing  to  him  a  murder  which  neither  he  nor  his 
fathers  had  committed,  his  tormentors  exacted  from 
him  millionfold  requitement  of  blood.  It  seems  then 
that  even  while  the  years  numbering  the  glad  times  of 
salvation  were  chronicling  the  happenings,  on  our 
planet  the  Jews  were  performing  the  function  of  mis- 
sionaries  illustrating  by  their  live&  of   suffering   the 


implications  of  these  "absolute  ethics."  This,  however, 
is  but  one  aspect  of  the  service  rendered  by  the  Jew 
after  the  birth  of  Jesus. 

The  Jew  is  the  barometer  of  civilization.  Alti- 
tudes may  be  read  by  the  telltale  figures  on  the  barom- 
eter's graduated  scale.  The  Jew  indicates  the  hbxght 
attained  by  civilization.  The  pressure  that  is  upou 
him  reveals  the  state  of  the  atmosphere  surrounding 
his  neighbors.  The  Jew  is  a  constant  appeal  to  the  con- 
science»»of  the  world.  He  is  a  reproach  to  all  that  pre- 
tend to  live  the  true  life  and  do  not.  That  love  and 
good  will  were  not  the  dominant  motives  of  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  elark  ages  is  amply  demonstrated  by  the 
lot  of  the  Jews  in  those  days.  But  what  about  our 
age?  Desertion  of  Juelaism  for  Unitarian  monotheism 
would  imply  that  there  is  no  further  call  for  the 
liistorical  unmasker  of  the  world's  immoral  pretense. 
Is  there  not?  Let  the  last  three  decades  of  rampant 
m'aterialism,  of  mad  nationalism,  of  rabid  anti-Semit- 
ism answer !  Everyone  born  of  a  Jewish  mother  is 
appointed  to  the  duty  which  is  the  Jew's,  to  be  the  ba- 
rometer of  civilization.  Call  this  mystery  or  what 
you  will.  It  is  a  fact  accentuated  even  in  the  recep- 
tion accorded  the  apostate  by  them  whose  ranks  he  joins. 
It  is  a  fact  emphasized  by  the  moral  suspicions  with 
which  the  world  judges  the  motives  prompting  the  de- 
cision of  the  Jewish  renegade.  The  Jew  who  would 
affiliate  with  Christian  Unitarians  will  not  have  to  ac- 
cept a  new  tholog}'.  But  while  assenting  to  the  view 
dis^'.is-ed  before  according  to  which  Judaism  was  poorer 
ir>  moral  inspiration  than  the  religion  of  Jesus,  the 
Jewish  neophyte  in  addition  exposes  himself  to  the 
just  distrust  that  the  desire  to  escape  the  obligations 
which  came  to  him  in.  the  hour  of  his  birth  has  in- 


fluenced  liis  net.  floral  cowards  certainly  lack  consc- 
(M-ation.  They  are  sorry  exponents  of  religious  and 
ethical  trutlis.  One  who  oasts  stones  on  the  grave  of 
his  fatlier  is  not  merely  not  advanced  to  higher  outlooks 
than  Judaism  vouchsafes,  he  is  infinitely  below  the 
spiritual  and  moral  level  of  his  mother's  religion. 

All  this  is  said  in  no  narrow  spirit.     By  all  means 
let  us  be  broad.     But  has  Unitarian  ever  dreamt  of 
joining  Judaism  ?     Here  is  the  rub !     To  accept  our 
name  "would    imply    rejecting    the   prejudice   of    two 
thousand  .years,  that  interpretation  of  history  according 
to  which   Jesus  originated  even  in  Palestine  entirely 
now   religious   and   moral   teachings.      N'ames   are  not 
unimportant.      Labels   are   not    always   libels.      Jacob 
in  tlie  legend  will  not  permit  his  assailant  to  depart 
ere  lie  have  been  blessed  by  him.     And  that  blessing 
was  conveyed  in  the  tormentor  hailing  him  as  Israel, 
''champion  of  God."     As  long  as  Jew  is  construed  to 
im])ly  arrested  moral  or  religious  growth,  poverty  or 
iiiiferiority   4n    humane   incemtives,    no    Jew    can    ac- 
quiesce in  labeling  Judaism  by  any  other  name.     The 
moral  principle  of  the  "Kampf  ums  Eecht"  is  involved 
in  this.     Unitarianism  proclaiming  the  leadership  of 
Jesus,  is  Judaism,  if  it  is  really  accepting  the  religion  of 
the  "Master."     Why  not  acknowledge  this?     Judaism 
nurtured  Jesus.     In  no  respect  did  his  teachings  trans- 
cend Judaism.     He  was  neither  more  universalistic  nor 
less  nationalistic  than  the  s3'nagogue  of  his  day.     If 
union  there  shall  be  of  these  two  regiments  marching 
under  different  banners  tokening  identity,     why     not 
ndo|)t  as  the  common  ap]iellation  the  older  name?  Prob- 
ably the  historic  associations  of  their  names  are  rich 
sources  of  inspiration  to  our  neighbors.    But  so  are  ours 
to  us.     We  perpetuate  an  injustice  upon  the  memory 

10 


of  our  fathers  and  abandon  onr  clear  right  to  orig- 
inality and  priority  if  we  haul  down  onr  flag.  As 
long  as  even  Unitarians  are  loath  to  bless  ns  as  "the 
lighters  for  truth"  we  shall  not  entertain  the  suggestion 
to  obliterate  the  line  of  division.  It  stands  for  a  prin- 
ciple, not  for  a  caprice. 

But  after  all  we  do  not  agree  in  fundamentals.    Re- 
ligion for  the -Jew  means  something  altogether  different 
from  what  it  signifies  to  the  monotheistic  non-Jew.    In 
the  first  place,  "death  and  immortality  are  in  no  sense 
focal  in  the  religion  of  the  Jew.     Life  is.     This  im- 
portant feature  "has    of   late  been   somewhat  blurred. 
Into  our  synagogues  has  intruded  a  notion  of  religion 
as   concerned  with   dying  which   is  altogether  imsup- 
ported  by  the  testimony  of  Judaism  given  in  Jewish  lit- 
erature.    Our  Bible  maintains  a  significant  silence  on 
immortality.     VHiat  will  happen  to  us  after  we  shall 
have  been  freed  from  the  fetters  of  our  mortality,  no 
Jew  ever  ventured  to  predict  in  precise  detail.  Tahnu- 
dic  speculation,  while  more  prolific  than  was  the  Bible 
on  this  point  is  far  from  dogmatic  inflexibility.    And  in 
the  Talmudic  elaboration  of  religion  scant  recognition 
was  given  to  the  doctrine  of  immortality.     For  what- 
e.ver  may  be  in  store  for  us,  this  is  the  certainty  cher- 
ished by  the  Jew,  that  the  beyond  shall    l)e  neither  a 
magnet 'nor  a  deterent.     This  life  worthily  lived  is  the 
best  prelude  to  whatever  may  await  us  in  the  hereafter. 
Orthodox  Jew,  and  Eadical  Jew,  in  fact,  whosoever  is 
a  Jewish  Jew,  is  not  prompted  by  the  thought  of  im- 
mortality, to  seek  God's  ^altars.     His  religion  certainly 
is  not  a  scheme  to  open  to  him  the  gates  of  heaven. 
It  is  not  a  plan  to  buy  him  immunity  from  the  punish- 
ment that  is  prepared  for  the  sinner.    Like  eleath.  so  is 
sin  not  the  dominant  preoccupation  of  Judaism.    Chris- 

11 


tianity,  however,  is  the  religion  of  other-workllines?. 
This  life  is  really  an  atlliction,  a  burden.  The  life  to 
be  i&  the  true  destiny  of  man.  It  is  the  first  and  the 
final  solicitude  that  urges  man  to  become  and  be  re- 
ligious. Religion  is  the  guide  to  the  beyond ;  it  prefers 
the  assurance  of  salvation;  even  in  the  eyes  of  the  non- 
dogmatic  Christian,  the  main  function  of  religion  is  to 
console;  its  purpose  is  to  fill  the  heart  with  sweet  con- 
fidence in  the  promises  of  life  eternal;  it  predicts  that 
the  contrasts  and  conflicts  of  this  life  shall  be  har- 
monized in  the  beyond';  that  injustice  done  here  will  be 
requited  there ;  the  first  shall  be  last,  and  the  last  shall 
be  first.  Other-worldliness  is  the  obsession  of  the  re- 
ligionist in  all  religions  save  sound  and  sane  Judaism. 
In  the  second  place,  Judaism  not  being  a  religion  of 
salvation;  and  therefore  its  preoccupation  being  cen- 
tered in  this  life,  its  passion  is  for  righteousness  here 
on  earth.  "Do  not  weep,"  says  the  Prophet,  "for  them 
that  die/'  but  weep  for  them  that  must  leave  their 
country.  Foreseeing  a  great  national  catastrophe  Jere- 
miah calls  for  tears  over  the  unrighteousness  of  kings 
and  courtiers  that  have  brought  upon  the  people  the 
calamity.  Death  is  natural.  It  is  no  evil.  But  he 
utters  his  "Woe  unto  them  that  build  their  houses, 
but  not  with  righteousness;"  that  live  in  palaces  while 
they  hold  the  poor  in  contempt;  that  spread  the  founda- 
tion of  their  wealth  on  the  spoliation  of  the  weaker 
members  of  society.  Religious  righteousness  as  a  so- 
cial potency  the  Jewish  prophet  pleads  for;  it  is  social 
unrighteousness  against  which  he  protests.  Not  indi- 
vidual salvation,  but  social  adjustment  of  the  basis  of 
equity,  is  the  sacramental  insistence  of  Juelaism,  the 
one  religion  that  would  inspirit  every  act  and  thought 
with  reverence  for  God  as  the  One  creator  whose  breath 

12 


animates  mortal  clay  and  ayIio  made  man  in  His  im'age. 

On  the  premises  of  Panlinian  theology  and  dogmatics 
other-worldliness  is  both  logical  and  inevitable.  If  all 
is  contaminated  by  sin,  if  the  curse  is  upon  this  world, 
one  who  has  least  concern  in  this  world  is  free^  from 
the  contagion  of  sin  and  is  safest  from  being  dom- 
inated by  the  spirit  of  sinfulness.  Hence  less  of  the 
world  means  more  of  glory  to  come.  But  if  this  world  is 
not  under  sin,  preoccupation  with  this  world's  affairs 
cannot  be  construed  to  be  sinful.  And  yet  so  strongly 
has  the  dogmatic  position  of  Christianity  influenced 
its  own  dogmatic  modifications  that  even  by  these  some- 
how or  other  the  affairs  of  this  world  are  held  to  be 
secondary. 

Other-worldliness  is  reintroduced  under  the  new 
name  spirituality.  Eeligion  is  construed  to  brin^  about 
a  union  in  the  spirit  of  God  and  man ;  a  mystic  merging 
of  the  individual  soul  in  the  All-soul.  Exaltation  and 
emotion  are  welcomed  as  symptoms  of  the  spiritual  re- 
generation. Eeligion  is  reduced  to  an  attitude  rather 
than  an  unl^roken  series  of  consecrated  activities.  It  is 
something  that  is  added  to  life  rather  than  a  force 
pervadincr  all  life.  An  element  of  unreality  is  intro- 
duced. The  senses  are  looked  upon  with  suspicion.  The 
body  is  held  to  be  of  evil.  N'ature  is  synonymous  with 
unholines?.  The  natural  healthy  life  is  put  under  the 
l)an.  Eesignation,  quietism,  not  assertion  and  re- 
sistance are  urged  as  sacred  moods.  Ambition  is  sin- 
ful. Altruism  is  posited  as  contrary  to  egoism.  Self- 
effacement  is  declared  the  prerequisite  to  S'anctified 
spirituality. 

The  Jewish  mind  has  but  little  in  common  with  this 
spirituality.  The  Jew  is  urged  to  develop  self  in  order 
that  in  the  service  of  others  he  may  do  more.    In  this 

13 


dust  woven  body  of  his,  his  spirituality  shall  find  its 
instrument.  Reality  shall  be  made  to  conform  with 
ideality.  Activity,  not  meditation,  is  the  resultant  dis- 
position. The  Jewish  religion  is  not  something  added 
to  life  but  is  ]>art  of  life  itself.  Strength,  not  sweetness 
is  its  gift.     13uty,  not  exaltation,  is  its  expression. 

^luch  of  the  non-dogmatic  Christianity  1  know  is 
saturated  with  this  other-worldliness.  Its  sympathies 
are  noble  but  inell'ective.  It  dreams  of  a  perfect  world 
but  forgets  to  battle  for  the  ])erfection  of  the  world.  It 
prays  and  worships.  It  analyzes  moods,  not  motives, 
•and  is  introspective.  It  lacks  virility.  It  is  graceful 
but  timid.  It  lives  in  the  clouds  beyond  the  dust  oi 
this  earth.  Judaism  is  always  beyond  thedluaordlu 
this  earth.  Judaism  is  ahvays  virile  or  it  is  not  Jewish. 
Prayer  and.  worship  are  means  not  ends.  Faith  must  be 
a  flame  that  warms,  not  a  pale  light  that  betrays  some- 
where a  star. .  V/ith  this  non-dogmatic  religion  of  spir- 
ituality we  have  nothing  in.  common. 

It  were  unpardonable  not  to  acknowledge  that  in  the 
Western  States  Unitarianism,  like  Judaism,  has  devel- 
oped 'along  freer  lines.  Character  and  condnct,  not  dog- 
ma or  sentiment,  are  the  .cardinal  intentions  of  re- 
ligion according  to  the  declaration  of  the  Western  con- 
ference. Here  it  would  seem  the  opportunity  was  of- 
fered for  a  closer  fellowship  between  this  ethical  Uni- 
tarianism  and  our  own  Judaism.  But  again  this  differ- 
ence comes  to  light.  Our  ethical  Judaism  is  not  the 
result  of  modifications  of  Judaism.  We  had  to  relin- 
(juish  no  dogma.  The  ethics  of  the  ])ro])hets  have  al- 
ways been  the  inspiration  of  Judaism.  Even  orthodox 
Judaism  is  under  the  consecration  of  ethical  passion. 
The  line  of  division  between  orthodoxy  and  radicalism 
in  Judaism  does-  not  coincide  with  that  between  dogma 

14 


and  deed.  Our  liberal  friends  will  not  understand  that 
we  have  not  been  influenced  by  modern  theories  but 
have  siniply  asked  Isaiah  and  Amos  and  Hoseah  to 
speak  to  us.  \Xe  have  Ijecome  more  Jewish  when  we 
eliminated  old  symbols.  In  our  relations  with  non- 
Jewish  liberalism  we  must  emphasize  our  Jewishness 
all  the  more  since  even  their  greatest  teachers  like  those 
of  the  Christian  wing  refuse  to  accord  to  Judaism  its 
due.  In  accentuating  the  positive  ethical  ambition  of 
religion  as  an  energy  to  build  up  character  and  reform 
society  according  to  the  insistences  of  justice,  liberal- 
ism has  simply  reverted  to  prophetic  Judaism.  The 
Jew  has  no  justification  for  abandoning  Judaism  on  the 
plea  that  service  to  man  calls  him  to  the  front.  That 
service  has  always  been  the  sacramental  obligation  of  his 
religion. 

We  rejoice  in  the  good  work  at  all  times  sponsored 
by  liberal  Unitarianism.  We  do  not  forget  that  every 
noble  cause  for  the  betterment  of  social  conditions  had 
among  its  prophets  men  and  women  of  the  Unitarian 
fraternity.  To  enlist  under  the  banner  of  social  ser- 
vice, no  Jew  is  required  to  abjure  his  Judaism.  Quite 
to  the  contrary,  his  Jud^aism  will  inspire  him  to  be 
loyal  to  this  flag.  In  following  it,  he  will  obey  fhe 
prophets'  call.  To  battle  for  God  and  man  is  Israel's 
historic  dut;\.  The  bond  of  union  between  us  and 
others  of  similar  consecration  need  not  necessitate  the 
obliterating  of  traditional  associations.  We  shall  not 
and  we  cannot  even  by  implication  concede  that  the 
centuries  of  our  dispersion  were  a  fatal  waste  of  energy. 
Until  this  world  is  willing  to  bless  Jacob,  his  descend- 
ants cannot  resign  their  birthright.  The  distinction 
between  Judaism  and  Unitarianism  is  not  without  a 
difference. 

15 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


D  LD 


NOV  r^i^i 


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OCT  im^\^ 


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General  Library 

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